Intraventricular Stasis In Cardiovascular Disease

This study is designed to quantify the ventricular stasis in patients with different forms of cardiomyopathy and at risk of stroke (ischemic, non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) by post-processing of 2D color Doppler echocardiography and phase contrast-magnetic resonance images in order to establish the relationship between quantitative variables of intraventricular stasis and the prevalence of silent embolic events and/or intraventricular mural thrombosis.

Cardioembolic stroke is a major source of mortality and disability worldwide and blood stasis inside the heart is the main risk factor for developing intracardiac thrombosis. We have recently developed and patented a quantitative image-based method to map blood stasis within the cardiac chambers. The method is suitable for any medical imaging modality that provides time-resolved flow maps inside the heart (magnetic resonance, echocardiography, or computational-fluid-dynamic processing from anatomical CT images). The objective of the present project is to validate this certified technology in a multicentric cross-sectional clinical trial of 258 patients with different forms of cardiomyopathy with high-risk of stroke. We will include patients with ischemic, non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in sinus rhythm and an echocardiogram, cardiac and cerebral MRI will be performed. Our objective is to quantify the ventricular stasis by post-processing of 2D color Doppler echocardiography and phase contrast-magnetic resonance images in order to establish the relationship between quantifiable intraventricular stasis variables and the prevalence of silent brain infarctions (SBIs) and intracavitary thrombosis determined by magnetic resonance (MRI).