Cine Displacement ENcoding imaging with Stimulated Echoes (cine-DENSE) confirms systolic myocardial dysfunction in asymptomatic patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: comparison with MR-tagging

Introduction Diabetic cardiomyopathy contributes to increased cardiovascular mortality in diabetes mellitus (DM) patients and is characterized by a progressive alteration of left ventricular (LV) function. At a preclinical stage, a decrease in systolic myocardial strain has been suggested in echocardiographic studies. MRI techniques remain the gold standard for quantification of myocardial deformation but only a single study suggested systolic abnormalities in type 2 DM patients with evidence of diastolic dysfunction. MR-tagging is the most common technique for strain calculation using CMR but is intrinsically limited in measuring transmural variations. Cine-Displacement ENcoding Imaging with Stimulated Echoes(DENSE) has been recently proposed as an alternative that benefits from an increased spatial resolution.