['Atherosclerosis is the underlying cause of the majority of myocardial infarctions and ischemic strokes. Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) is a surrogate measure of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Left ventricular (LV) function can be accurately assessed by 2D speckle-tracking strain echocardiography (2D-STE). The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between carotid IMT and LV dysfunction assessed by strain echocardiography in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD).', 'Thirty-one patients with symptoms of CAD were examined with coronary angiography, cardiac echocardiography and carotid ultrasound. Layer-specific longitudinal strains were assessed from endo-, mid- and epicardium by 2D-STE. LV global longitudinal strain (LVGLS) was averaged from 16 longitudinal LV segments in all 3 layers. LVGLS results were compared with coronary angiography findings in a receiver operating curve (ROC) to determine the cut-off for normal and pathological strain values. The calculated optimal strain value was compared to maximal carotid IMT measurements.', 'The ROC analysis for strain versus coronary angiography was: area under curve (AUC)=0.91 (95% CI 0.80 - 1.0), cut-off value for endocardial LVGLS: -16.7%. Further analyses showed that increased carotid IMT correlated with low absolute strain values (p=0.006) also when adjusted for hypertension, smoking, hyperlipidemia, diabetes and BMI (p=0.02).'] Is carotid artery intima-media thickness closely related to impaired left ventricular function in patients with coronary artery disease : a single-centre , blinded , non-randomized study?