Capabilities and limitations of speckle tracking stress echocardiography

Stress echocardiography is a technique that allows to evaluate myocardial contractility and intracardiac hemodynamics under conditions of physical exercise or reaction to a pharmacological drug. Evaluation of systolic function of the left ventricle plays an important role in establishing the prognosis and choosing a treatment strategy for various cardiovascular diseases. Speckle tracking technique is one of the most promising methods for determining values of left ventricular deformation, due to which not only visual, but also quantitative assessment of left ventricular myocardial contractility is possible at rest and during stress tests. In this review, we analyzed the possibility of using speckle tracking stress echocardiography with physical exercise or with the pharmacological drug, in order to diagnose various diseases, such as ischemic heart disease, valvular heart disease, diabetes mellitus, and microvascular damage. Along with this, differences between the values of the longitudinal systolic deformation depending on age were considered. We also compared diagnostic values of the data of speckle-tracking stress echocardiography and coronary angiography and values of the data of speckle-tracking stress echocardiography and computed tomography of the coronary arteries.