Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 27, 2026
Human Fetal Blood Flow Quantification with Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Motion Compensation
Published on: January 7, 2021
Altered Right Ventricular Filling at Four-dimensional Flow MRI in Young Adults Born Prematurely
Philip A Corrado1, Gregory P Barton1, Jacob A Macdonald1
1Departments of Medical Physics, Radiology, Pediatrics, and Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wis (P.A.C., M.W.E., O.W.); Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, 5323 Harry Hines Blvd, Dallas, TX 75390-8558 (G.P.B., K.N.G.); Department of Radiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich (J.A.M.); and Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn (C.J.F.).
Purpose:
To use four-dimensional (4D) flow MRI to measure intraventricular flow in young adults who were born prematurely to investigate mechanisms that may account for increased heart failure risk in this population.
Materials And Methods:
In this secondary analysis of a prospective study, a total of 56 young adults participated in an observational cardiac 4D flow MRI study from 2016 to 2020. There were 35 participants who had been born moderately to extremely prematurely (birth weight <1500 g or gestational age ≤32 weeks; 23 women; mean age, 26 years ± 4) and 21 term-born participants (11 women; mean age, 25 years ± 3). Participants underwent cardiac MRI, including cine cardiac structure and function assessment, as well as 4D flow MRI. In each ventricle, normalized kinetic energy (KE/end diastolic volume) and flow through the atrioventricular valve were computed and compared between term-born and preterm participants at systolic and diastolic (early diastolic filling rate [E wave] and late diastolic filling [atrial contraction] rate [A wave]) time points by using Wilcoxon rank-sum tests.
Results:
Preterm-born participants had lower right ventricular (RV) E wave/A wave (E/A) KE ratios (2.4 ± 1.7 vs 3.5 ± 1.4; P <.01) and lower E/A peak filling rate ratios (computed from RV volume-time curves; 2.3 ± 1.3 vs 3.5 ± 2.5; P = .03). Additionally, viscous energy dissipation was increased during systole (5.7 µW/mL ± 3.0 vs 4.2 µW/mL ± 1.6; P = .03), increased during late diastole (3.9 µW/mL ± 4.0 vs 2.2 µW/mL ± 1.6; P = .03), and summed over the cardiac cycle (2.4 µJ/mL ± 1.0 vs 1.9 µJ/mL ± 0.6; P = .02) in preterm relative to term participants.
Conclusion:
These results suggest that RV diastolic filling is altered in young adults who were born moderately to severely prematurely.Supplemental material is available for this article. Keywords: Adults, Cardiac, Comparative Studies, MR-Imaging, Right Ventricle © RSNA, 2021.
