Quantitative normal values of helical flow, flow jets and wall shear stress of healthy volunteers in the ascending aorta

Figures

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  Fig. 1. 3D visualization of the evolution of a helix in the ascending aorta during the entire cardiac cycle of a healthy individual (left column) and a patient with BAV (female, 39 years old, right column). (a) At early systole, the helix occupies only the very proximal part of the ascending aorta in die healthy volunteer and a big part in the patient. (b) At mid-systole, it has grown in volume and length and reached its maximum—the maximum helical volume (HVmax). (c) At end-systole at 300 ms, most of the helix vanished. (d) The summation of all volumes that contributed to the helix during the entire cardiac cycle is the accumulated helical volume (HVacc), and its length is the accumulated helical volume length (HVLacc)

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  Fig. 2. Visualization of measurements of helical velocities. (a) The maximum forward velocity (maxVfor) in metres per second (m/s) describes the maximum helix velocity in downstream direction (blue arrow). (b) The maximum circumferential velocity (maxVcirc) in m/s describes the maximum cross-sectional helix velocity in circumferential direction within the axial measuring plane (blue arrow)

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  Fig. 3. 3D visualization of wall shear stress (WSS) as a heatmap. (a) Heatmap of a healthy volunteer normal WSS distribution of max. 0.5 Pa. (b) WSS heatmap of a patient with BAV with elevated WSS at the outer surface of the aortic arch of max. 0.8 Pa

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  Fig. 4. Relationship between age and geometric aortic parameters. Top: ascending aortic volume (ml), bottom: ascending aortic diameter (mm), both show a strong trend to increase with age. The grey dotted lines mark the 2.5% and 97.5% percentiles; the grey solid lines mark the median

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  Fig. 5. 3D visualization of helices in the ascending aorta and in the aortic arch. Note the gap between both helices

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  Fig. 6. Relationship between age and the helix forward velocity (Vfor) (m/s), showing a strong trend to decrease with age. The grey dotted lines mark the 2.5% and 97.5% percentiles; the grey solid lines mark the median