Cardiac Blood Flow Patterns Associated With Left Ventricular Myocardial Damage

Various factors affect the performance of the heart: The contractile properties of myocardial muscle cells are the fundamental devices for translating tension-generation and shortening of the cardiac muscle into pressure-generation and blood volume ejection from the heart into the body. On the other hand, the performance of heart can be analyzed with respect to input and output of blood to/from the hollow cardiac muscle and evaluated in terms of the performance of a pump: With every heartbeat blood is sucked from a low-pressure system (veins) and pumped to the arterial high-pressure system via one-way valves, whereas efficiency, ejected blood volume, blood flow and pressures are linked by hemodynamic laws.

Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is the "gold standard technique" to determine cardiac function and muscle mass, as well as for non-invasive diagnosis of myocardial necrosis/fibrosis. Furthermore, new CMR imaging techniques enabling the measurement of myocardial magnetic relaxation times for characterization of myocardial morphology and the acquisition of time-resolved, three-dimensional blood flow velocity fields in the heart and surrounding vessels, represent promising tools for the evaluation of the interaction between myocardial morphology and cardiac function.

Aim of this explorative study is to 1. identify myocardial pathology-associated blood flow patterns in the heart and surrounding great vessels, and 2. correlate characteristic blood flow patterns in the heat (existence of vortices, vorticity, vortex formation, propagation dynamics …) with myocardial injuries.