Background CMR LGE detects myocardial tissue abnormalities in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and aids in risk stratification, predicting in particular heart failure and to a lesser extent, sudden death. However, LGE quantifies only the area of focal fibrosis only, missing diffuse fibrosis and assuming all LGE is the same. We hypothesized that the total left ventricular fibrosis burden, as me...

Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging is increasingly used to evaluate patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) before pulmonary vein antral isolation (PVAI). The purpose of this study was to assess the incidence and pattern of left ventricular (LV) late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) in patients undergoing CMR before PVAI and compare the clinical and demographic differences of patients with and...

Background In new diagnoses of left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction it is important to exclude coronary artery disease (CAD) as the cause. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging using late gadolinium enhancement (LGE CMR) highlights fibrosis from ischaemia or infarcts in a subendocardial distribution. Many consider that the absence of LGE indicates an absence of significant CAD. The evidence ...

Background Recent studies have shown the prognostic value of the infarct border zone of late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) images in patients with myocardial infarction [1]. This border zone has also been associated with ventricular arrhythmia [2,3]. The accuracy of the characterization of this area depends on spatial resolution of the imaging. 3D LGE allows improved spatial resolution, especial...

BACKGROUND Silent myocardial infarctions (MIs) are prevalent among diabetic patients and inflict significant morbidity and mortality. Although late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging by cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) can provide sensitive characterization of myocardial scar, its prognostic significance in diabetic patients without any clinical evidence of MI is unknown. METHODS AND RESULT...

BACKGROUND The use of gadolinium contrast agents in cardiovascular magnetic resonance is well-established and serves to improve both vascular imaging as well as enable late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging for tissue characterization. Currently, gadofosveset trisodium, an intravascular contrast agent, combined with a three-dimensional inversion recovery balanced steady state free precession...

Automatic segmentation of the left ventricle (LV) in late gadolinium enhanced (LGE) cardiac MR (CMR) images is difficult due to the intensity heterogeneity arising from accumulation of contrast agent in infarcted myocardium. In this paper, we present a comprehensive framework for automatic 3D segmentation of the LV in LGE CMR images. Given myocardial contours in cine images as a priori knowledg...

BACKGROUND Catheter contact force (CF) is an important determinant of radiofrequency (RF) lesion quality during pulmonary vein isolation (PVI). Late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allows good visualization of ablation lesions. OBJECTIVE This study describes a new technique to examine the relationship between CF during RF delivery and LGE signal intensity (SI) fo...

OBJECTIVES Ultrasmall superparamagnetic particles of iron oxide (USPIO)-enhanced MRI can detect tissue-resident macrophage activity and identify cellular inflammation within tissues. We hypothesised that USPIO-enhanced MRI would provide a non-invasive imaging technique that would improve the diagnosis and management of patients with acute myocarditis. METHODS Ten volunteers and 14 patients wi...

Delayed contrast enhancement after injection of a gadolinium-chelate (Gd-chelate) is a reference imaging method to detect myocardial tissue changes. Its localization within the thickness of the myocardial wall allows differentiating various pathological processes such as myocardial infarction (MI), inflammatory myocarditis, and cardiomyopathies. The aim of the study was first to characterize be...