Impact of temporal resolution on LV myocardial regional strain assessment with real-time 3D ultrasound

Non-invasive quantification of regional left ventricular (LV) deformation is crucial for the identification of clinical and subclinical myocardial dysfunction in various conditions. Several software tools now exist to provide regional LV strain estimation for echocardiography images. In this paper, we experimentally investigated the impact of real-time three-dimensional (RT3D) ultrasound temporal resolution on the precision of an integrated speckle-tracking framework. We compared temporal displacement and strain profiles acquired at three different frame rates on five normal volunteers. Results showed that estimated displacement fields and regional strain measurements were more homogeneous and of larger amplitude at higher frame rates.