Validation and clinical application of myocardial strain by echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance

Understanding and describing the functional complexity of the heart has prompted the development of imaging modalities aiming for a more in-depth characterization of left ventricular mechanics by non-invasively evaluating the myocardial deformation, i.e. strain. Over the years, deformation imaging techniques have become extremely popular and have been applied to numerous research questions. In the contemporary framework of evolving tissue tracking technology, the present thesis contributes to the current state-of-the-art by addressing part of the gaps in evidence of validation and clinical application of deformation imaging modalities. Accordingly, this research work was focused on validating a widely used deformation imaging modality, 2D and 3D speckle tracking echocardiography and on investigating the clinical value of a new and promising tissue tracking modality, feature tracking cardiac magnetic resonance. This research work is therefore lining up to the efforts of standardization of strain measurement proposed by the imaging societies and contributes to the advancement in the field of clinical implementation.(MED - Sciences médicales) -- UCL, 201