Geometry Does Impact on the Plane Strain Directions of the Human Left Ventricle, Irrespective of Disease

Abstract

The directions of primary strain lines of local deformation in Epicardial and Endocardial layers have been the subject of debate in recent years. Different methods led to different conclusions and a complete assessment of strain direction patterns in large and variable (in terms of pathology) cohorts of healthy and diseased patients is still lacking. Here, we use local deformation tensors in order to evaluate the angle of strain lines with respect to the horizontal circumferential direction in both Epi- and Endo-layers. We evaluated this on a large group of 193 subjects including 82 healthy control and 111 patients belonging to a great variety of pathological conditions. We found that Epicardial strain lines obliquely directed while those of Endocardium are almost circumferential. This result occurs irrespective of pathological condition. We propose that the geometric vinculum characterizing Endocardium and Epicardium in terms of different lever arm length and orientation of muscular fibers during contraction inescapably requires Endocardial strain lines to be circumferentially oriented and this is corroborated by experimental results. Further investigations on transmural structure of myocytes could couple results presented here in order to furnish additional experimental explanations.