title: Echocardiographic prediction of outcome after cardiac resynchronization therapy: conventional methods and recent developments.
abstract: Echocardiography plays an important role in patient assessment before cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) and can monitor many of its mechanical effects in heart failure patients. Encouraged by the highly variable individual response observed in the major CRT trials, echocardiography-based measurements of mechanical dyssynchrony have been extensively investigated with the aim of improving response prediction and CRT delivery. Despite recent setbacks, these techniques have continued to develop in order to overcome some of their initial flaws and limitations. This review discusses the concepts and rationale of the available echocardiographic techniques, highlighting newer quantification methods and discussing some of the unsolved issues that need to be addressed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, P.O. Box 855500, 3508 GA Utrecht, The Netherlands. g.e.h.leenders@umcutrecht.nl
authors.forename: Geert E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Leenders
authors.forename: Maarten J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Cramer
authors.forename: Margot D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Bogaard
authors.forename: Mathias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Meine
authors.forename: Pieter A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Doevendans
authors.forename: Bart W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: De Boeck
mesh_terms: D058406:Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy / Q000379:methods; D004452:Echocardiography / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011379:Prognosis; D016896:Treatment Outcome