Left ventricular mechanics in advanced heart failure patients

Abstract

The general introduction of the thesis outlines the role of cardiac mechanics assessment in the evaluation and risk stratification of HF patients. Part I This part of the thesis summarizes current imaging techniques to assess various aspects of LV mechanics in HF patients (Chapter 2), differentiating between ischemic and non-ischemic HF (Chapter 3) and investigating its role in the selection of HF patients who are candidates to CRT (Chapters 4-6). Furthermore, the role of imaging techniques to optimize the results of CRT is summarized in Chapter 7. Part II The final part focuses on long-term prognosis of advanced HF patients. Novel echocardiographic techniques provide several parameters that have incremental prognostic value over well-recognized echocardiographic and clinical parameters (Chapters 8-11). CONCLUSIONS The study of cardiac mechanics is crucial in advanced HF patients. Particularly, using imagine techniques as speckle-tracking echocardiography, important information on the effects of CRT in heart failure patients may be derived. Moreover, studying LV mechanics may be helpful for understanding the differences in pathophysiological mechanisms of different HF aetiologies. Finally, the role of non-invasive imaging techniques for the study of LV mechanics may be paramount for the definition of long-term prognosis in advanced HF patients.