The Mitral Valve Prolapsus: Quantification of the Regurgitation Flow Rate by Experimental Time-Dependant PIV.

Abstract-Color Doppler is routinely used for visualisation of intra cardiac flows and quantification of valvular heart disease. Nevertheless the 2D visualisation of a complex 3D phenomenon is the major limitation of this technique. In particular, in clinical setting, the flow rate calculation upstream a regurgitant orifice (i.e. mitral valve insufficiency), assumes that the velocity field in the convergent region have hemispheric shapes and introduce miscalculation specially in case of prolaps regurgitant orifices. The main objective of this study was to characterize the dynamic 3D velocity field of the convergent region upstream a prolaps model of regurgitant orifice based on 2D time dependent PIV reconstruction. Keywords-Mitral Valve, Prolapsus, Regurgitation Flow, PIV