Assessment of Left and Right Ventricular Strain and Strain Rate Before and After Percutaneous Closure of Atrial Septal Defects in Adults and Adolescents

In most echocardiographic studies, left ventricle (LV) systolic function was normal in the patients with ASD and only a few cases had a reduced LV ejection fraction with severe right ventricle (RV) volume overload. The device closure of ASD increases immediately the blood flow to the left ventricle and may unmask subtle abnormalities in systolic and diastolic function. Currently, clinical research in cardiac mechanics is moving from short- and long-axis LV and RV function and ejection fraction to two and three- dimensional (2D, 3D) ventricular deformation studies (Strain and Strain Rate quantification). These methods are independent of ventricular geometry and allow quantification of myocardial motion and deformation in different directions (longitudinal, radial, and circumferential), while conventional methods mainly rely on the assessment of radial function. Strain imaging has also been used to demonstrate that patients who underwent device closure of an ASD had better LV and RV longitudinal deformation than patients who underwent surgical closure of an ASD. However, the effect of device size on the LV systolic and diastolic function is still under investigations. For all these reasons the researchers intend to measure RV and LV haemodynamic changes by 2-D Transthoracic Echocardiography (TTE) derived Tissue Doppler and Strain quantification in ASD before and after transcatheter closure with special emphasis on the assessment of the relationship between device size and biventricular systolic and LV diastolic function.