ABSTRACT
The new modalities of noninvasive cardiac imaging, such as color Doppler flow mapping (CDFM) and magnetic resonance imaging, are providing cardiologists and cardiac surgeons with the ability to observe blood-flow patterns in the heart and great vessels. In order to better understand the flow patterns created in the presence of different cardiac defects and abnormalities, a series of well-defined in vitro laboratory-bench flow visualization studies were conducted. Subsequently a Polaroid photograph of the stored electronic pulse signal and the aortic, mitral, or pulmonic flow curve was taken, thereby recording the instant the photograph was taken with respect to the cardiac cycle. CDFM may represent one of the most important advances in noninvasive cardiac imaging technology. The technique offers, for the first time, true spatial relationships of cardiac blood flow. The left-heart pulse duplicator was used to provide a completely controllable system for study of aortic incompetence jet morphologies as a function of hemodynamic extremes.
