Morichi H, Itatani K, Yamazaki S, et al. - Among 20 healthy volunteers and 14 patients who had undergone mitral valve repair, researchers conducted this inquiry to determine the impact of annuloplasty procedures in mitral repair on left ventricular (LV) vortex flow patterns as well as aortic outflow patterns, and flow energy loss (EL). The participants underwent three-dimensional cine phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging (4D flow MRI). A band group comprised 7 patients with semi-rigid and 2 with flexible partial bands. The ring group comprised 5 patients with semi-rigid complete rings. Relative to healthy volunteers, mitral repair was shown to cause different vortex flow patterns. In this study, mitral repair, particularly with relatively small annuloplasty rings, was shown to cause abnormal LV flow patterns as well as EL elevation, which hold the potential to serve as a new hemodynamic assessment method following mitral repair.