A Survey of Cardiac 4D PC-MRI Data Processing

Cardiac 4D PC-MRI acquisitions gained increasing clinical interest in recent years. They allow to non-invasively obtain extensive information about patient-specific hemodynamics and thus have a great potential to improve the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. A dataset contains time-resolved, three-dimensional blood flow directions and strengths, facilitating comprehensive qualitative and quantitative data analysis. The quantification of measures such as stroke volumes helps to assess the cardiac function and monitor disease progression. Qualitative analysis allows to investigate abnormal flow characteristics, such as vortices, that are correlated to different pathologies. Processing the data comprises complex image processing methods as well as flow analysis and visualization. In this work, we mainly focus on the aorta. We provide an overview from data measurement and preprocessing to current visualization and quantification methods so that other researchers can quickly catch up with the topic and take on new challenges to further investigate the potential of 4D PC-MRI.