Transit of blood flow through the human left ventricle mapped by cardiovascular magnetic resonance

Background. The transit of blood through the beating heart is a basic aspect of cardiovascular physiology which remains incompletely studied. Quantification of the components of multidirectional flow in the normal left ventricle (LV) is lacking, making it difficult to put the changes observed with LV dysfunction and cardiac surgery into context. Methods: Three dimensional, three directional, time resolved magnetic resonance phase-contrast velocity mapping was performed at 1.5 Tesla in 17 normal subjects, 6 female, aged 44 +/- 14 years (mean +/- SD). We visualized and measured the relative volumes of LV flow components and the diastolic changes in inflowing kinetic energy (KE). Of total diastolic inflow volume, 44 +/- 11% followed a direct, albeit curved route to systolic ejection (videos 1 and 2), in contrast to 11% in a subject with mildly dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), who was included for preliminary comparison (video 3). In normals, 16 +/- 8% of the KE of inflow was conserved to the end of diastole, compared with 5% in the DCM patient. Blood following the direct route lost or transferred less of its KE during diastole than blood that was retained until the next beat (1.6 +/- 1.0 millijoules vs 8.2 +/- 1.9 millijoules, p < 0.05); whereas, in the DCM patient, the reduction in KE of retained inflow was 18-fold greater than that of the blood tracing the direct route. Conclusion: Multidimensional flow mapping can measure the paths, compartmentalization and kinetic energy changes of blood flowing into the LV, demonstrating differences of KE loss between compartments, and potentially between the flows in normal and dilated left ventricles.