Subclinical alterations in myocardial structure and function occur early during the natural disease course. In contrast, clinically overt signs and symptoms occur during late phases, being associated with worse outcomes. Identification of such subclinical changes is critical for timely diagnosis and accurate management. Hence, implementing cost-effective imaging techniques with accuracy and reproducibility may improve long-term prognosis. A growing body of evidence supports using cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) to quantify deformation parameters. Tissue-tagging (TT-CMR) and feature-tracking CMR (FT-CMR) can measure longitudinal, circumferential, and radial strains and recent research emphasize their diagnostic and prognostic roles in ischemic heart disease and primary myocardial illnesses. Additionally, these methods can accurately determine LV wringing and functional dynamic geometry parameters, such as LV torsion, twist/untwist, LV sphericity index, and long-axis strain, and several studies have proved their utility in prognostic prediction in various cardiovascular patients. More recently, few yet important studies have suggested the superiority of fast strain-encoded imaging CMR-derived myocardial strain in terms of accuracy and significantly reduced acquisition time, however, more studies need to be carried out to establish its clinical impact. Herein, the current review aims to provide an overview of currently available data regarding the role of CMR in evaluating myocardial strain and biomechanics.
Multi-Parametric Non-Contrast Cardiac Magnetic Resonance for the Differentiation Between Cardiac Amyloidosis and Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
The study aimed to assess fast strain-encoded (SENC) cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) and native T1 mapping in distinguishing between hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and cardiac amyloidosis. Ninety-nine patients (57 with HCM, 42 with amyloidosis) were analyzed for LV parameters, myocardial strain (global and segmental), and T1 values. HCM patients showed evenly