Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Jun 26, 2015; 7(6): 299-305
Published online Jun 26, 2015. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v7.i6.299
Left atrial physiology and pathophysiology: Role of deformation imaging
Johannes Tammo Kowallick, Joachim Lotz, Gerd Hasenfuß, Andreas Schuster
Johannes Tammo Kowallick, Joachim Lotz, Gerd Hasenfuß, Andreas Schuster, DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site Göttingen, D-37075 Göttingen, Germany
Johannes Tammo Kowallick, Joachim Lotz, Institute for Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Georg-August University, D-37075 Göttingen, Germany
Johannes Tammo Kowallick, Andreas Schuster, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Division of Imaging Sciences, The Rayne Institute, St Thomas Hospital, King’s College School of Medicine London, London SE1 7EH, United Kingdom
Gerd Hasenfuß, Andreas Schuster, Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, Georg-August University, D-37075 Göttingen, Germany
Author contributions: Kowallick JT, Lotz J, Hasenfuß G and Schuster A contributed in accordance with the standard proposed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors to this paper.
Supported by The DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research); the BMBF (German Ministry of Education and Research); the Research program of the Faculty of Medicine of the Georg-August-University in Göttingen, Germany.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Andreas Schuster, MD, PhD, FESC, Lecturer, Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, Georg-August University, Robert-Koch-Strasse 40, D-37075 Göttingen, Germany. andreas_schuster@gmx.net
Telephone: +49-551-3920400 Fax: +49-551-396389
Received: November 26, 2014
Peer-review started: November 26, 2014
First decision: December 12, 2014
Revised: January 6, 2015
Accepted: April 27, 2015
Article in press: April 29, 2015
Published online: June 26, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Recent advances in speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) and cardiovascular magnetic resonance myocardial feature tracking (CMR-FT) allow a detailed quantification of left atrium (LA) dynamics in terms of strain and strain rate imaging. Corresponding imaging biomarkers are progressively found to have the potential to predict the outcome in a variety of cardiovascular disease states. The current editorial introduces the role of STE and CMR-FT for the functional assessment of LA deformation and provides an outlook of how this exciting field may evolve in the future.