Novel Echocardiographic Biomarkers Assessing the Myocardial Work in Heart Failure

Complete and comprehensive medical interview will be conducted in each eligible patient. In addition, patient's laboratory data will be recorded on admission and pre-discharge. Each patient will undergo a full echocardiographic examination with a specific protocol upon admission and pre-discharge. This will include among others 2-dimensional speckle-tracking analysis of all cardiac chambers, and non-invasive calculation of myocardial work indices of the left and right ventricle.