Echocardiography
Echocardiograms were obtained according to a standardised protocol on a Phillips iE 33 machine (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) equipped with an S5-1 transducer that transmits a frequency of 1.7 MHz. and receives a frequency of 3.4 MHz. All data were analysed offline after being transferred to an Xcelera workstation (Philips). The RALS analysis was performed separately offline using Philips Qlab station 9.0software.