Figure 1

Left atrial speckle-tracking echocardiography. Top. Evaluation of atrial deformation by the speckle-tracking technique. The endocardial contour of the LA is traced in a 4-chamber view. The thickness of the region of interest is then defined. The software automatically tracks atrial wall movements, allowing fine adjustments and verification in real time. Bottom. Strain curves for the same patient as in top figure, examined during AF (left) and after 1 month of SR (right). Each curve represents one of the six LA wall segments; the dotted line indicates the mean strain.