Intra-left ventricular flow distributions in diastolic and systolic phases, based on echo velocity flow mapping of normal subjects and heart failure patients, to characterize left ventricular performance outcomes of heart failure

Heart failure (HF), one of the most common diseases in the world, causes left ventricular dysfunction (LV) and high mortality. HF patients are stratified into two groups based on their LV ejection fraction (EF) — HF with normal EF (HFNEF) and with reduced EF (HFREF). EF is a commonly used measure of LV contractile performance. Despite preserved EF, a complex mixture of systolic and diastolic dysfunction and variable degrees of LV remodelling underlying HFNEF poses challenges to diagnose and provide pharmacological treatment for HFNEF. In recent years, the velocity flow mapping (VFM) technique has been developed to generate flow velocity vector fields by post-processing color Doppler echocardiographic (echo) images. We aim to obtain the intra-LV blood flow patterns for patients with HFNEF, HFREF, and normal subjects, in order to characterize the LV performance outcomes of normal subjects and HF patients. Two subjects from each group of HFNEF, HFREF, and normal underwent echo scans. Velocity vector distributions throughout the cardiac cycle were then analysed using the VFM technique. In each subject, the outflow rate during systole, inflow rate during diastole, as well as wall stress-based pressure-normalized contractility index, dσ*/dtmax, were computed and compared among the groups. This study demonstrated the use of VFM to visualize LV blood flow patterns in HF patients and normal subjects. Different patterns of flow distributions were observed in these subjects. In HFREF patients, dσ*/dtmax, the peak outflow rate and peak inflow rate during early filling were markedly reduced. In HFNEF patients, peak outflow rates were increased compared to those of normal subjects