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Myocardial T1-Mapping in chronic myocardial infarction: preliminary results of unenhanced and contrast enhanced MR imaging using Gadobutrol
Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance volume 12, Article number: P154 (2010)
Purpose
At a given field strength tissues present with specific T1-values. Reference values for normal unenhanced myocardium have been established. We hypothesize, that infarcted myocardial tissue can be delineated from normal myocardium by means of T1-maps in unenhanced and contrast-enhanced scans.
Materials and methods
13 patients with chronic myocardial infarction were examined at 1.5 T (Magnetom Avanto, Siemens Healthcare). A modified Look-Locker inversion recovery (MOLLI) sequence (TR/TE 200.7/1.03 msec; TI 100-4000 msec; flip 35°) was performed pre- and 10 min post-contrast (0.15 mmol/kg gadobutrol, Bayer Schering Pharma) at an apical, midmyocardial and basal short axis position. For calculation of T1-values signal intensities of myocardial and infracted tissue were measured at 11 points of time [1]with two blocks of 3 and a third block 5 consecutive image acquisitions. Within each block TI increased by steps of 80 msec.
15 minutes after contrast medium application a single slice IR GRE was employed for imaging of delayed enhancement.
Data were post-processed with an in-house built software (PMI 0.4). T1 maps were created on the basis of unenhanced (fig. 1) and enhanced (fig. 2) data. Areas of normal and infarcted myocardial tissue were identified on delayed enhancement images and the regions of interest were copied to the unenhanced and enhanced MOLLI images. The analyses of T1-values were performed for normal myocardium (MYO), infarcted myocardium (CMI) and the left ventricular cavity (LVC). In addition T1-ratios of MYO/LVC and CMI/LVC were calculated.

Figure 1

Figure 2
Student's t-test was used for statistical analysis of acquired and calculated data.
Results
The comparison of T1-values of MYO (fig. 3) and CMI (fig. 4) revealed significant differences in pre-contrast scans (1028 ± 36 vs.1210 ± 63 msec; p < 0.001), as well as CMI T1-values in comparison to LVC (1210 ± 63 vs.1509 ± 70 msec; p < 0.001). The calculated ratios of MYO/LVC and CMI/LVC were also significantly different (0.68 ± 0.04 vs.0.79 ± 0.06; p < 0.001) in pre-contrast scans. In post-contrast evaluations differences of T1-values in MYO and CMI were equally high (360 ± 46 vs.224 ± 55 msec; p < 0.001) resulting in significantly different T1-ratios of MYO/LVC (1.5 ± 0.21) and CMI/LVC (0.9 ± 0.10; p < 0.001).

Figure 3

Figure 4
Conclusion
MR-measurements of T1-values with the LVC as reference allow for differentiation of infarcted areas from normal myocardium. Further studies are warranted for a normalization of values in order to reduce the dependency on contrast timing, dose and agent.
References
Daniel Messroghli, et al: Optimization and Validation of a Fully-Integrated Pulse Sequence for Modified Look-Locker Inversion-Recovery (MOLLI) T1 Mapping of the Heart. JMRI. 2007, 26: 1081-1086. 10.1002/jmri.21119.
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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Bauner, K.U., Biffar, A., Theisen, D. et al. Myocardial T1-Mapping in chronic myocardial infarction: preliminary results of unenhanced and contrast enhanced MR imaging using Gadobutrol. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 12 (Suppl 1), P154 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1186/1532-429X-12-S1-P154
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1532-429X-12-S1-P154
Keywords
- Myocardial Tissue
- Normal Myocardium
- Left Ventricular Cavity
- Chronic Myocardial Infarction
- Delay Enhancement Image