Figure 1.

Myocardial tissue tracking in a representative mid-ventricular short axis cine image. Left. Contours are drawn on the endo- and epicardial boarders at a single phase of the cardiac cycle. Middle: Tissue tracking software propagates the contours automatically and follows the motion of the contour throughout the cardiac cycle; displayed as motion vectors across the ventricular wall. Right: Strain (circumferential or radial) can then be displayed in the form of color maps throughout the cardiac cycle. In this case, circumferential strain is displayed. With this data derived, diastolic strain rate is simply calculated as the time derivative of either circumferential or radial strain.