title: Clinical implications of left atrial function assessed by speckle tracking echocardiography.
abstract: Left atrial (LA) function has a significant impact on cardiovascular diseases and has been assessed by several noninvasive methods. However, several limitations, including the dependence of image quality, single plane assessment, and time-consuming procedures, have prevented widespread clinical application of the assessment of LA function. Strain imaging using tissue Doppler echocardiography enables quantification of LA function. Recently, two-dimensional speckle tracking echocardiography (2D-STE) has been developed as a noninvasive, simple, and reproducible tool for assessment of LA function in patients with cardiovascular disease. 2D-STE enables detection of early LA dysfunction even before LA morphological changes. LA dysfunction determined by 2D-STE can provide additional prognostic information to conventional echocardiographic parameters in patients with cardiovascular diseases. Hence, 2D-STE appears to be a promising technique for diagnosis and therapeutic decision-making. However, standardization of analysis techniques and software applications of 2D-STE is still lacking. Here, we review recent studies on clinical implications of LA function assessed by 2D-STE and summarize the remaining problems to be solved to improve the clinical utility of this tool.
authors.affiliation: Department of Infection Control and Laboratory Medicine, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, South-1, West-16, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, 060-0061, Japan. yuda@sapmed.ac.jp.|Department of Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolic Medicine, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan. yuda@sapmed.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yuda
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolic Medicine, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.
authors.forename: Atsuko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Muranaka
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolic Medicine, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.
authors.forename: Tetsuji
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miura
mesh_terms: D016279:Atrial Function, Left; D004452:Echocardiography; D015150:Echocardiography, Doppler; D006325:Heart Atria / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
keywords: Atrial function; Echocardiography; Left atrium; Speckle tracking; Strain imaging