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Updated: Jun 5, 2026
Echocardiographic Assessment of Cardiac Anatomy and Function in Adult Rats
Published on: December 13, 2019
Assessment of left ventricular diastolic function using 4-dimensional phase-contrast cardiac magnetic resonance
Rahul Kumar1, John Charonko, W Gregory Hundley
1Department of Internal Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1045, USA.
Objectives:
Phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging can potentially assess the dynamics of left ventricular (LV) early diastolic filling.
Methods:
Fifteen participants underwent phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging on a 1.5-T whole-body Avanto scanner (Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany). Left ventricular intracavitary velocities were measured in 3 orthogonal directions. Imaging parameters included a repetition time of 92.45 milliseconds, an echo time of 2.88 milliseconds, a flip angle of 30 degrees, and a velocity-encoding range of 100 to 150 cm/s.
Results:
The color vector analysis provided a visual assessment of LV diastolic flow. In normal subjects, there was rapid organized early diastolic flow that extended from the mitral valve to the LV apex. In patients with LV diastolic dysfunction, organized high-velocity flow stopped in the mid-left ventricle.
Conclusions:
Four-dimensional phase-contrast cardiovascular magnetic resonance can differentiate between normal and abnormal diastolic flow propagation within the left ventricle.
