Validity of resting strain/strain rate in prediction of myocardial viability

To evaluate the validity of the resting strain/strain rate measurements in predicting myocardial viability taking delayed enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance imaging as the gold standard. A cohort of 60 patients at three months followed up after acute myocardial infarction were recruited for this study. Resting echocardiography with offline analysis of deformation indices and gadolinium contrast enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance imaging were applied for all patients. For the final assessment, 268 segments with significant resting wall motion abnormalities were presented. Resting longitudinal strain was significantly (p < 0.05) higher in viable, compared with non-viable segments in all the studied individual myocardial segments (apical inferior, mid antro-lateral, mid-inferolateral, mid inferoseptum, and all other segments). Likewise, resting longitudinal strain rate was significantly (p < 0.05) higher in viable, compared with non-viable segments in almost all studied individual myocardial segments apart from apical inferior, mid inferolateral and basal antro-septum (p = 0.245, p = 0.098, p = 0.097 respectively). Resting Strain and Resting Strain rate could be used as accurate predictors of myocardia viability following acute myocardial infarction.