Three‐dimensional quantification of vorticity and helicity from 3D cine PC‐MRI using finite‐element interpolations

• Published in: Magnetic resonance in medicine Vol. 79; no. 1; pp. 541 - 553
• Main Authors: Sotelo, Julio, Urbina, Jesús, Valverde, Israel, Mura, Joaquín, Tejos, Cristián, Irarrazaval, Pablo, Andia, Marcelo E., Hurtado, Daniel E., Uribe, Sergio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.01.2018
• Subjects: 3D cine PC‐MRI; Blood vessels; Computational fluid dynamics; Computer applications; Computer simulation; Density; Finite element analysis; Finite element method; finite elements; flow quantification; Fluid dynamics; Helicity; Hydrodynamics; Magnetic resonance imaging; Mathematical models; Patients; Personal computers; Planes; Velocity gradient; Vorticity; flow quantification; helicity; vorticity; finite elements; 3D cine PC-MRI
• ISSN: 0740-3194; 1522-2594
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.26687

Purpose We propose a 3D finite‐element method for the quantification of vorticity and helicity density from 3D cine phase‐contrast (PC) MRI. Methods By using a 3D finite‐element method, we seamlessly estimate velocity gradients in 3D. The robustness and convergence were analyzed using a combined Poiseuille and Lamb‐Ossen equation. A computational fluid dynamics simulation was used to compared our method with others available in the literature. Additionally, we computed 3D maps for different 3D cine PC‐MRI data sets: phantom without and with coarctation (18 healthy volunteers and 3 patients). Results We found a good agreement between our method and both the analytical solution of the combined Poiseuille and Lamb‐Ossen. The computational fluid dynamics results showed that our method outperforms current approaches to estimate vorticity and helicity values. In the in silico model, we observed that for a tetrahedral element of 2 mm of characteristic length, we underestimated the vorticity in less than 5% with respect to the analytical solution. In patients, we found higher values of helicity density in comparison to healthy volunteers, associated with vortices in the lumen of the vessels. Conclusions We proposed a novel method that provides entire 3D vorticity and helicity density maps, avoiding the used of reformatted 2D planes from 3D cine PC‐MRI. Magn Reson Med 79:541–553, 2018. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.