Application of ultrasound assessment of left ventricular cardiac strain in cardiology

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) remain one of the most urgent health problems worldwide. These diseases cover a large population groups and affect all age groups regardless of gender. Heart failure (HF), as a natural complication of most CVDs, is not an exclusive disease of the elderly people. There are numerous and complex pathophysiological mechanisms that operate regardless of age and cause HF. These include traditional cardiovascular risk factors (arterial hypertension, dyslipidemia, overweight), low living standards, and problematic access to health system due to socio-economic inequalities. Special attention is currently paid to the problem of early heart failure diagnosis. So, today the medical community is discussing the possibility of using such a non-invasive technique as ultrasound to study cardiac strain. Currently, ultrasound is an affordable and highly informative technique for early diagnosis of HF manifestations. The authors consider the issue of not only clinical, but also prognostic significance of cardiac strain indicators in patients with CVD and HF. This review highlights the main issues of cardiac strain assessment, ultrasound advantages and limitations. The authors studied publicly available literature and analyzed promising directions for ultrasound application in modern cardiology. For literary analysis, the resources of PubMed, eLibrary, CyberLeninka, MedLine, Google Scholar, and Elsevier were used.