Figure 1

Methodology used to measure flow in the ascending aorta in one of the study patients. At the top, a diagram indicating positioning of slices across the ascending aorta 4 cm distal to aortic valve. At these locations, magnitude images and velocity maps were generated with standard phase-contrast techniques. On velocity map, the gray scale intensity for each pixel encodes for velocity in the range of ± m/sec. For each frame of the cardiac cycle, velocity within the vessel is calculated as the average velocity for all the pixels within the lumen. As shown in the lower portion of the figure, flow is determined by summing the flow measurement (Area × mean velocity) the all of the frames acquired across the cardiac cycle.