Figure 2

Regional velocity colourplots for the mid slice of a healthy volunteer, the early DCM patient and the late DCM patient in the longitudinal, radial and circumferential directions, allowing analysis of regional motion. The global velocity peaks labelled in Figure 1 are marked beneath. The longitudinal plot for the early DCM patient is similar to the healthy example but the radial direction shows lowered velocities throughout the cycle and abnormal regional variation (for example the early diastolic peak is heterogeneous across the myocardium). The late DCM example has normal longitudinal systolic velocities in the lateral region but lowered velocities elsewhere. The radial direction shows localised diastolic relaxation in the lateral regions and very low velocities elsewhere throughout the cardiac cycle. The circumferential direction is most slice dependent and most variable between the healthy volunteers (as shown in Figure 1) and so it is more difficult to assess.