Pre-heart failure at 2D- and 3D-speckle tracking echocardiography: A comprehensive review

Chronic heart failure (CHF) has different stages and includes pre-HF (PHF), a state of high risk of developing myocardial dysfunction and advanced CHF. Some major behavioral risk factors of PHF might predispose to biological risk factors such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, hypertension, myocardial infarction, and cardiomyopathy. These risk factors damage the myocytes leading to fibrosis, apoptosis, cardiac hypertrophy, along with alterations in cardiomyocyte' size and shape. A condition of physiological subcellular remodeling resulting into a pathological state might be developed, conducting to PHF. Both PHF and heart failure (HF) are associated with the activation of phospholipases and protease, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress and development of intra-cellular free Ca