Improvement in Strain Concordance between Two Major Vendors after the Strain Standardization Initiative

Echocardiography in Acute Heart Failure: Current Perspectives

“…Lack of inter-vendor standardization, a potential drawback for clinical and trial use of ventricular mechanics, is been currently remedied by joint efforts from industry and experts. 55 However, data from clinical trials are still limited and published experience in AHF is scarce. In 201 patients with a first episode of AHF, global LV circumferential strain predicted cardiac death or HF readmission over 39±17 months of follow-up.…”

Strain Imaging in Echocardiography: Converging on Congruence?

“…Moving on to the ''glass half full'' report in the current issue of JASE, this second study was structured in a fashion largely similar to the first, with intervendor comparison of strain across several versions of software (though without the additional analysis of vendor-neutral software). 6 By way of full disclosure, please note that I am a coauthor of this report. In contrast to the prior study, this one was not focused solely on normal subjects (who constituted only 20% of the study population), although most of the others must have been ''pretty normal,'' as all mean values of GLS and LV ejection fraction (EF) were quite comparable with those in the JUSTICE reanalysis, despite at least one subject with an EF into the teens.…”

“…Lower CVs indicate closer agreement between two sets of measurements and also provide a guide as to how large a change between two successive measurements is needed to have faith that that change is ''real'' and not just due to random measurement error. Yang et al 6 asked the interesting question as to whether our intervendor strain task force was having a favorable impact, by comparing these CV results from before the standardization effort to those afterward. Comparison was also made with the CVs for end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes and EF.…”

Refining the Risk for Atrial Fibrillation

“…34 However, data from large ethnically diverse populations are needed to confirm the incremental predictive ability of chamber-specific deformational indices. Although equipment and analytic techniques are becoming increasingly standardized, 35 the development of age-and sex-adjusted normal reference and partition values on a larger scale will be needed to predict and ultimately prevent the development of AF.…”