Left Ventricular Strain Mapping Utilizing Novel Strain Tracking Techniques

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness and usability of Vevo Strain 2.0 (VS2), a FUJIFILM VisualSonics Inc. software package to assess left ventricular functional parameters from ultrasound images. We hypothesized that VS2 would achieve left ventricle strain values within 20% of Vevo Strain 1.0 (VS1) while providing more physiological information and a better user experience. To achieve this, we evaluated the left ventricular strain of C57Bl/6N adult male mice (n=4) at three surgical timepoints: healthy baseline (prior to surgery), 3 weeks after induction of transverse aortic constriction via microsurgery, and 1 week after releasing the transverse aortic constriction. Strain was evaluated using VS1 and VS2 left ventricular wall motion tracking software of brightness mode ultrasound images in both the short- and long-axis planes. In the short-axis plane, global circumferential strain values were within the 20% threshold between VS1 and VS2 for all animals at all experimental timepoints. In the long-axis plane, approximately ¾ of all the global longitudinal strain values were within the 20% threshold. Further, in both planes, as strain magnitude increased, the differences in strain between VS1 and VS2 decreased, especially in strains greater than 15%. This is likely due to the fact that at small strains, noise and image quality can have a bigger impact on the overall results. From these comparisons, we can conclude that VS2 can accurately track the wall motion of the left ventricle from a short- or long-axis ultrasound image. Additionally, VS2 provided additional information regarding regional strain differences, the capacity to evaluate 4-dimensional strain using multiple views of the same left ventricle, and a more user-friendly interface with which to analyze data. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2025 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.