Evaluation and monitoring of patients with cardiomyopathies (including myocardial infiltration)

Abstract: Cardiomyopathy is a general term used to describe a heterogeneous group of diseases that result in impairment of ventricular function. Clinical manifestations of these diseases can range from an asymptomatic state to heart failure or arrhythmias to sudden cardiac death. Cardiac imaging, in particular echocardiography, plays a vital role in the diagnosis and management of affected individuals, and recently strain imaging has garnered great interest due to its superior ability to identify early functional abnormalities. This chapter focuses on the most common cardiomyopathies and will focus on longitudinal strain (LS) in the affected chamber; for most, this means left ventricular LS with the exception of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy.