The Taub Faculty of Computer Science Events and Talks

Mitral Regurgitation (MR) is a cardiac disorder, in which there is dysfunction of the mitral valve, >resulting in backwards regurgitation of blood from the left ventricle into the left atrium. The gold standard to assess MR is by echocardiography, using ultrasound and the Doppler effect, which are more qualitative than quantitative. Using Echo-Doppler, the velocity of the blood can be measured only for the component that is parallel to the direction of the ultrasound beam, necessitating the use of simplistic geometric assumption that the shape of the iso-velocity surface area is a hemisphere.

In this research, a 3D technique to quantitatively assess MR by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is developed, based on the fact that MRI enables one to acquire both the anatomical image and the blood velocity in all regions, at a number of spatial slices and at a number of time points during the heart cycle. In contrast to ultrasound imaging,

MRI imaging avoids the potentially incorrect iso-velocity hemisphere assumption. MRI imaging results and calculation of MR volumes will be presented, along with theoretical and practical aspects of the research. Comparison between echocardiography results and MRI 3D results will be shown and discussed.

M.Sc. research under the supervision of Prof. Moshe Porat (EE, Technion) and Dr. Jonathan Lessick (Medical school, Technion).