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In the fields of cardiology and medical imaging, speckle tracking echocardiography is an echocardiographic imaging technique. It analyzes the motion of tissues in the heart by using the naturally occurring speckle pattern in the myocardium.
This method of documentation of myocardial motion is a noninvasive method of definition for both vectors and velocity. When compared to other technologies seeking noninvasive definition of ischemia, speckle tracking seems a valuable endeavor. The speckle pattern is a mixture of interference patterns and natural acoustic reflections. These reflections are also described as speckles or markers.
The pattern being random, each region of the myocardium has a unique speckle pattern that allows the region to be traced. The speckle pattern is relatively stable, at least from one frame to the next. In post processing this can be tracked consecutively frame to frame and ultimately resolved into angle-independent two-dimensional and three-dimensional strain-based sequences. These sequences provide both quantitative and qualitative information regarding tissue deformation and motion.