Editorial for "Evaluating a Phase‐Specific Approach to Aortic Flow: A 4D Flow MRI Study".

This article discusses the use of four-dimensional flow magnetic resonance imaging (4D flow MRI) to measure blood flow in the aorta. The authors evaluate how the segmentation of the aortic wall affects flow characterization from 4D flow MRI. They find that time-averaged values are comparable between different segmentation methods, but flow metrics at peak systole vary. The study suggests that measuring peak values may be sufficient for 4D flow MRI analysis, but further investigation is needed for metrics related to the aortic wall. The main advantage of 4D flow MRI is its ability to capture the complete time-resolved blood velocity field of the aorta in 3D. However, the phase-specific approach increases post-processing time, although this could be reduced with the emergence of automatic and AI-based segmentation methods. The article also mentions the application of deep learning to time-resolved segmentation in cardiovascular 4D flow MRI. Overall, the study highlights the importance of accurately defining the aortic wall boundary for flow characterization. [Extracted from the article]