Regional myocardial function before and after heart surgery – an echocardiographic study

Objectives: After heart surgery transient wall motion abnormalities may occur which can be quantified using strain echocardiography. Purpose: To evaluate postoperative myocardial function using local deformation parameters (strain imaging). Material and Methods: 20 children with different heart diseases (age 1.9±3.8 years, weight 8.8±10.4kg) were examined. To evaluate regional function, local deformation parameters (strain imaging) were analysed at 4 different stages (before surgery, the day of surgery, 1 week and 4 weeks post surgery). Both right and left ventricular free walls and the septum were analyzed. For each region, maximal strain and strain rate were assessed during ejection. Results: Strain and strain rate of all segments were severely decreased on the day of surgery. All analyzed regions showed an improvement of regional function after 1 week. The interventricular septum recovered first (preoperative values after 1 week), the right ventricular free wall recovered after 4 weeks, and the left ventricular free wall showed slightly decreased strain values even after 4 weeks which may be due to a change in loading conditions. Conclusions: After heart surgery, strain echocardiography shows transient impairment of regional myocardial function that is recovering after 1–4 weeks in most of the analyzed segments. Strain echocardiography therefore might be an interesting tool to follow postoperative myocardial function.