The Utility of Myocardial Work in Clinical Practice

Abstract

Myocardial work (MW) is a novel technique used in the advanced assessment of left ventricular function. In the past few years, this invasive measure has evolved to become a more attainable noninvasive technique. MW has benefits over left ventricular ejection fraction and global longitudinal strain by speckle-tracking echocardiography, as it includes the afterload-dependent limitation and dynamic myocardial contraction in relationship to various loading conditions. In this article, the authors provide a summary overview and discuss the additive value noninvasive MW provides to left ventricular systolic function assessment. The authors explore the evolution of invasive to noninvasive MW, examine how to acquire and measure, discuss normal reference values, examine its role in a multitude of cardiac conditions that have been investigated in current research, review a variety of clinical applications, and discuss potential limitations. The goal is to allow the reader to see the benefits of this rapidly emerging application and be able to incorporate it into everyday practice.

Keywords: Myocardial efficiency; Myocardial work; Speckle-tracking echocardiography; Transthoracic echocardiography.