Cardiac remodeling after acute myocardial infarction (MI) is an important process that leads to progressive ventricular enlargement and heart failure. Several variables have been identified to predict an increase in left ventricular (LV) volume and a decrease of LV ejection fraction (LVEF) after an acute MI including infarct size, anterior location, cardiac enzyme level, transmurality of the infarct, patency of the infarct-related artery, end systolic volume (ESV) and mitral deceleration time, etc. / Regional disturbances of LV wall motion have long been recognized to occur in patients with cardiac diseases, such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, unstable angina, acute ischemia, and MI. Tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) is recently established for detecting regional contractile abnormalities and asynchrony, and can predict reverse remodeling and improved synchronicity after biventricular pacing therapy in heart failure patients. However, it is unclear whether LV asynchrony plays an important role in the evolutionary changes of LV remodeling after an acute infarction and whether it can predict the changes independently. / The identification of transmural extent of myocardial necrosis and degree of non-viability after acute MI is clinically important. TDI-derived strain rate imaging (SRI) quantifies local rate of myocardial deformation and has the potential to differentiate viable from infarcted myocardium. / Therefore, in this study we aimed to investigate: (1) Whether SRI may differentiate transmural from non-transmural MI as assessed by ce-MRI in routine patients post acute infarction, and establish practical cutoff values for identifying transmural scar tissue from non-transmural or subendocardial infarction with viable myocardium. (2) Whether LV systolic and diastolic asynchrony measured by TDI occurs early after acute MI even in the absence of widening of QRS complexes, and determine if this is explained by the site and extent of the infarction measured by ce-MRI. (3) The relationships between serial measurements of infarct size on ce-MRI and LV remodeling process after an acute infarction, and determine whether early assessment of infarct size predicts progressive ventricular enlargement and cardiac dysfunction, and whether it differs with infarct location. (4) The relationships between LV asynchrony, infarct size and LV remodeling, and determine whether early assessment of LV asynchrony by TDI compared with standard clinical correlates of LV remodeling and infarct size predicts progressive ventricular enlargement and cardiac dysfunction. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) / Zhang Yan. / "April 2005." / Adviser: John E. Sanderson. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-01, Section: B, page: 0175. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-192). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.