title: Longitudinal myocardial peak velocities using high temporal resolution phase-contrast and simple averaging are comparable to tissue Doppler echocardiography.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Phase contrast imaging is widely used to measure blood velocity. However tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) echocardiography is the reference for myocardial velocity assessment. This study aims at validating the ability of phase contrast (PC) sequences to correctly assess myocardial velocities and to compare these velocities to TDI. The phase contrast sequence was performed with breath-hold parameters and with parameters tuned to increase temporal resolution in free breathing.
  
  
  METHODS
  Left and Right auriculo-ventricular annuluses longitudinal velocities were recorded on six healthy volunteers with different temporal resolutions (TDI: 5 ms, breath-hold PC: 94 ms and free-breathing PC: 19 ms). Free-breathing PC was obtained by averaging of three excitations. Amplitudes of four standard echocardiographic and clinically relevant myocardial longitudinal velocity waves were compared: Early filling and auricular, systolic and isovolumic contractions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Isovolumic contraction waves were only visible with free-breathing PC and TDI. The differences with the reference TDI wave velocities were lower (p = 0.02) for free-breathing PC (19.2 ± 2.6%) than for breath-hold PC (28.1 ± 2.9%). These differences for free-breathing PC were close to (p = 0.21) the coefficient of variation of the measurements provided by TDI (14.8 ± 1.2%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Myocardial longitudinal peak velocities can be assessed with a PC sequence tuned to optimize temporal resolution.
authors.affiliation: Université de Lorraine, IADI U947, 54000, Nancy, France.
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bonnemains
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Marçon
authors.forename: Pierre-Yves
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Marie
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Felblinger
authors.forename: Pierre-André
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Vuissoz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003287:Contrast Media; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D015150:Echocardiography, Doppler / Q000379:methods*; D055119:Elastic Modulus / Q000502:physiology; D054459:Elasticity Imaging Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D019028:Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cine / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D009200:Myocardial Contraction / Q000502:physiology*; D012016:Reference Values; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D016276:Ventricular Function / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media