Diagnostic Value of Strain Rate Imaging by Tissue Doppler in Patients with Suspected Coronary Artery Disease

Strain Rate Imaging (SRI) is a new diagnostic technique.
The present study aimed to determine the diagnostic value of SRI in detection and localization of coronary lesions in patients with chest pain, but without apparent wall motion abnormalities.
Patients and This study was conducted on 91 patients with suspicion of stable angina or unstable angina selected through simple random sampling. SRI was done using Tissue Doppler Imaging (TDI) prior to coronary angiography. All the patients had normal electrocardiograms and normal wall motion in echocardiography. Longitudinal strain was obtained for 18 segments in the Left Ventricle (LV). Then, peak longitudinal systolic strain (εsys), post systolic shortening, and its characteristics were assessed in normal and abnormal segments. Significant coronary lesion was considered if stenosis was above 70%.
The results showed that 40 patients with heterogeneous strains and 2 patients with constant strains had significant coronary stenosis. Besides, 31 patients with constant strains and 18 ones with heterogeneous strains had normal or minimal coronary lesions. Moreover, εsys was lower in ischemic than in normal segments (P SRI is a new non-invasive diagnostic tool that could be used for detecting coronary stenosis in patients with chest pain, but without apparent wall motion abnormalities on echocardiography.