Particle Tracing Based on 4D Flow Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A Systematic Review into Methods, Applications, and...

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular Imaging
• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Physics

Background:

• Four-dimensional Flow MRI (4D Flow MRI) is a postprocessing technique used to analyze blood flow dynamics.
• Particle tracing, applied to 4D Flow MRI data, provides quantitative and qualitative insights into temporally evolving blood flow patterns.

Approach:

• A systematic review was conducted to identify and synthesize methods, clinical applications, and developments of 4D Flow MRI-based particle tracing.
• Two focused searches on the PubMed database were performed, supplemented by additional literature searches.
• Data extracted included particle tracing methodologies, clinical applications, and reported clinical value.

Key Points:

• Most methods utilize adaptive timesteps, fourth-order Runge-Kutta integration, and linear time interpolation.
• Particle tracing has been applied across diverse cardiovascular anatomies, including heart chambers, aorta, and cerebral vasculature.
• Applications are categorized into intravascular, intracardiac, flow stasis, and research-oriented uses.

Conclusions:

• 4D Flow MRI-based particle tracing provides unique insights into blood flow in cardiovascular diseases.
• The technique's quality is highly dependent on MRI data quality.
• Additional studies are necessary to fully evaluate the clinical value of particle tracing for specific cardiovascular diseases.