Introduction:

Advanced echocardiography techniques, such as the global longitudinal strain using two-dimensional ultrasound speckle tracking, have been proposed for the detection of early changes in the left ventricular systolic function. The evaluation of the reproducibility of left ventricular global longitudinal strain is essential for its clinical application in different scenarios.

Objective:

To determine the reproducibility of left ventricular global longitudinal strain in individuals from a Brazil cohort study.

Methods:

The reproducibility of left ventricular global longitudinal strain was evaluated by the reading and analysis of echocardiograph images of a random sample of 50 participants of the baseline Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil).

Results:

The mean age of the participants was 49.7 ± 7.3 years, of whom 54% were women, and the mean global longitudinal strain was -19.5% ± 1.9%. The inter-observer reproducibility of the mean global longitudinal strain, had a coefficient of variation of 7.4%, and an intra-class correlation of 0.76 (95% CI: 0.61 - 0.86). The analysis of the inter-observer agreement of the global longitudinal strain measurements using the Bland and Altman method showed a mean differences of 0.1% ± 1.4%, and upper and lower limits of agreement of 2.9 and -2.7, respectively.

Conclusions:

There was adequate reproducibility of the left ventricular global longitudinal strain measurements in participants of the ELSA-Brasil study, and the values were similar to those reported in other longitudinal epidemiological studies. The findings reinforce the use of the global longitudinal strain as a clinical marker of myocardial deformation, capable of detecting subclinical changes in myocardial contractility.

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