Normative Data for Left and Right Ventricular Systolic Strain in Healthy Caucasian Italian Children by Two-Dimensional Speckle-Tracking Echocardiography

Methods: Echocardiographic measurements included STE LV longitudinal and circumferential and RV longitudinal global end-systolic epsilon. Age, weight, height, heart rate (HR), and body surface area (BSA) were used as independent variables in different analyses to predict the mean values of each measurement. Echocardiograms were performed by Philips-iE33 systems (Philips, Bothell, WA) and offline measurements on Philips-Q-Lab-9.

Background: There is an increasing interest in echocardiographic strain (epsilon) measurements for the assessment of ventricular myocardial function in children; however, pediatric nomograms remain limited. Our aim was to establish pediatric nomograms for the left ventricular (LV) and the right ventricular (RV) epsilon measured by two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (2D-STE) in a large cohort of healthy children prospectively enrolled.