Evaluation of blood flow dynamics in healthy and myocardial infarction hearts using Echodynamography

Blood flow dynamics were analyzed in healthy and myocardial infarction (MI) subjects using Echodynamography (EDG). EDG visualizes two-dimensional (2D) distribution of blood flow vector in the heart applying the theories of fluid dynamics to color Doppler echocardiography. The principle concept of EDG is that non-turbulent blood flow is described as the combination of base flow and vortex flow. The vortex flow is considered as a flow on a plane so that classical “stream function” is applied to obtain blood flow vector. The base flow is defined as the flow without vortex formation on the plane. Newly proposed “flow function” considers blood flow to and from other plane and the vector of the base flow is obtained with the flow function. Color Doppler data of heart apical three-chamber view were recorded by a commercially available medical ultrasound equipment. Blood flow distribution was different in healthy and MI subjects. In a healthy subject, vortex flow was observed as a whole blood flow in along the ce...