Quantification of diastolic vortex shape deformation in left ventricular filling from 4D flow MRI

Background Vortical blood flow patterns (vortices) play a fundamental role in normal physiology of cardiac function in achieving the proper balance between blood flow and stress on surrounding structures and preventing blood stagnation. These patterns develop and evolve inside the cardiac atria and ventricles as a result of asymmetric chamber geometry. However, because of the complex geometry and flow patterns, their behavior and correlation to cardiac function is still under research. Moreover, most of the work in literature is based on qualitative analysis which has the drawbacks of subjectivity in interpretation and may impose observer bias towards the conclusions about these flow patterns. Accordingly, quantitative analysis of data is required for objective analysis of vortices. The purpose of this study was to quantify the vortex shape deformation in left ventricular (LV) inflow patterns and to evaluate association with early and late filling flow velocity.