Fig. (4).

Longitudinal strain before and after cardiac surgery (coronary bypass and mitral valve reconstruction) in a patient with coronary artery disease associated with severe mitral regurgitation. Global strain (white dotted line) increased from less than 3% preoperatively (A and C) to 11% after surgery (B and D). There was also a relevant improvement in the synchrony and synergy of regional systolic longitudinal shortening revealed by the more uniform amplitude and time course of the differently colored regional strain curves. [Knosalla C, Dandel M et al., Annual Meeting of the German Society for Thoracic and Vascular Surgery 2007].