Pablo Bchler1,
2, Gerard Crelier3, Lida Toro4, Myriam Ferreiro4,
Marcelo Andia1, 2, Cristian Tejos, 25, Pablo
Irarrzabal, 26, Sergio Uribe1, 2
1Department
of Radiology, School of Medicine, Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile,
Santiago, Chile; 2Biomedical Imaging Center, Pontificia Universidad
Catlica de Chile, Santiago, Chile; 3Institute for Biomedical
Engineering, University and ETH, Zurich, Switzerland; 4Hospital
Stero del Ro, Santiago, Chile; 5Department of Electrical
Engineering , Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile, Santiago, Chile; 6Department
of Electrical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Catlica de Chile,
Santiago, Chile
When forward and backward flows are present in the same heart phase, underestimation of regurgitant flow fraction (RF) may occur if flow is quantified by the standard method of averaging flow volume. We propose to quantify forward and backward flow volumes per voxel in each heart phase, and then calculate RF. We applied this method in patients with repaired Tetrology of Fallot and found higher values of RF compared to the standard method. Since surgical management might be recommended for patients with high RF, the standard method could not detect patients who might benefit from surgical intervention.
Keywords