Automatic Quantification of Left Ventricular Systolic Wall Thickening Using Two-Dimensional Strain Assessed by a Novel Tissue-Tracking System

Background. A novel tissue-tracking system (TTS) that enables automatic assessment of two-dimensional (2-D) strain of left ventricle (LV) segments simultaneously from gray-scale digital echocardiography images has been validated in an animal study at our institution. We sought to define the application of TTS for automatic quantification of systolic wall thickening (WT) with a study in humans. Methods. We assessed 202 LV segments from 101 good and fair quality digital echo images acquired from 35 subjects. Radial strain was automatically derived from displacement between two points of interest placed at the epi- and endocardial borders of each segment. Peak radial strain at each segment was compared with manually measured systolic wall thickening. Results. There were good correlation and agreement between 2-D radial strain assessed by TTS and manually measured systolic WT in overall subjects (r = 0.89, p < 0.001). The correlation and agreements were better in good quality images (r = 0.94, p < 0.001) rather than that in fair quality images (r = 0.82, p < 0.001). Conclusion. The novel TTS provides a method for automatic quantification of human LV systolic wall thickening.