Left atrial strain: a new window on left ventricular filling pressure?

In a paper published in the current issue of this Journal, Henein et al. 1 demonstrated that pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP) correlated strongly with global left atrial (LA) systolic strain rate, which was the most accurate echocardiographic variable in identifying abnormally raised pressures. these findings suggest the potential role of LA strain rate in heart failure for identifying patients with raised LA pressure.

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