BACKGROUND Although catheter ablation therapy for atrial fibrillation (AF) is becoming more common, results vary widely, and patient selection criteria remain poorly defined. We hypothesized that late gadolinium enhancement MRI (LGE-MRI) can identify left atrial (LA) wall structural remodeling (SRM) and stratify patients who are likely or not to benefit from ablation therapy. METHODS AND RESU...

Methods 44 consecutive pts (38±11 years-old, 29 men) with DCM were included, after exclusion of ischemic heart disease (coronary angiography), secondary cardiomyopathies (clinical and laboratory investigation), non-sinus rhythm and contraindications to CMR. Functional class and plasmatic NT-pro-BNP were assessed. All pts underwent CMR: a) short-axis SSFP for left atrial area and left ventricle ...

BACKGROUND Studies have reported an inverse relationship between late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) signal intensity and left atrial (LA) endocardial voltage after LA ablation. However, there is controversy regarding the reproducibility of atrial LGE CMR and its ability to identify gaps in ablation lesions. Using systematic and objective techniques, this study ex...

BACKGROUND Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) of ventricular structure and function is widely performed using cine balanced steady state free precession (bSSFP) MRI. The bSSFP signal of myocardium is weighted by magnetization transfer (MT) and T1/T2-relaxation times. In edematous and fibrotic tissues, increased T2 and reduced MT lead to increased signal intensity on images acquired with hi...

BACKGROUND Late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging overestimates acute infarct size. The main aim of this study was to investigate whether acute extracellular volume (ECV) maps can reliably quantify myocardial area at risk (AAR) and final infarct size (IS). METHODS AND RESULTS Fifty patients underwent cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging acutely (24-72 hours) and at convalescence (3 mo...

The developmental potential of neural progenitors derived from the E13.5-E14 lateral or medial ganglionic eminences (LGE and MGE, respectively) or the E12 ventral mesencephalon (VM) was examined in cross-species transplantation model. After injection into the E15 rat forebrain ventricle, mouse LGE progenitors (unlike those of the MGE or VM) were consistently integrated into the host striatum, e...

Methods Dogs (n=9) underwent coronary occlusion and reperfusion to delineate the time course of development of changes in non-contrast T1 abnormalities. T1 was quantified by 1.5T CMR (Siemens) using a Modified LookLocker Inversion Recovery (MOLLI) sequence. T2prepared SSFP (T2p) and LGE images were acquired at the end of the experiment to define 1) Infarction [LGE positive], 2) Salvaged myocard...

Methods Subjects were eligible for entry if they had documented PAH as defined by WHO Criteria and were referred for a clinically indicated CMR exam where routine 3D metrics and LGE were performed. All images were retrospectively reviewed. The data collected as follows: right and left ventricular RV/LV EDVI and ESVI; RVEF and LVEF; RV anterior and inferior hinge point angle measurements (systol...

Background It is well known that the DCM patients having Late Gadolinium Enhancement at Mid-layer of LV septal wall (Mid-LGE) shows poor prognosis compared to the case not having Mid-LGE However, about the other histopathological differences by the existence of Mid-LGE, it is not clear. On the other hand, in recent years, it became possible to calculate ECV from measurement of T1 value of the m...

Background Myocardial late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) MRI has become a standard clinical exam for characterizing myocardial viability after infarction and for assessing many nonischemic myocardial diseaseses. Typically, a 3D slab covering the myocardium is scanned within a single breath-hold. However, 3D LGE with sufficient resolution and slice coverage requires a long scan time and is challe...