Analyse van de interactie tussen intracardiale stroom en regionale vetriculaire functie met behulp van echocardiografische 2-dimensionale flow field tracking.

Aim: This project seeks to apply the principle of echocardiographic tissue tracking to the intracardiac blood pool (particle image velocimetry) in order to determine typical intraventricular flow patterns in physiology and disease and to investigate their relation to regional ventricular wall function. Research Plan: 1) Implementing the blood flow tracking algorithm in our hardware environment and optimizing the workflow of image analysis. 2) The blood flow in the cavity during the different phases of the cardiac cycle is complex and comprises the formation of different vortices. We plan to measure and describe these vortex patterns and analyze the interaction of the flowing blood with the regional wall motion in healthy persons with respect to gender and age. 3) Pathologic hearts will show a more or less disturbed flow pattern, depending on the nature of the disease and its influence on the geometry and function of the heart muscle. In a next step, we therefore plan to investigate the intracavitary flow patterns and the blood/ heart wall interaction. Follow up investigations will show the influence of treatment. 4) In patients with myocardial infarction, changes in cardiac geometry can be very individual. We will therefore investigate the inter-individual differences in cavitary blood flow and flow / wall deformation interaction in infarct patients. We expect to find patterns which can be attributed to the different remodelling processes and the progress of the disease. 5) In patients with conduction delays, the distortion of myocardial wall mechanics is obvious. We plan to study the blood flow / wall deformation interaction in these patients and try to find possibilities that can be used to guide resynchronization therapy.

Trefwoorden:cardiac blood flow, particle image velocimetry, myocardial function, echocardiography, blood flow patterns

Disciplines:Cardiale en vasculaire geneeskunde