Background Right ventricular (RV) failure is associated with increasing morbidity and mortality in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Pressure overload in PAH leads to a complex series of changes in cardiomyocytes and the extracellular matrix of the RV. Thus, quantitative T1 mapping of the RV to assess myocardial extracellular volume fraction (ECV) may be a valuable noninvasive marker of RV...

Background Post-contrast cardiac T1 measurement has been reported to be correlated with interstitial fibrosis burden. However, post-contrast cardiac T1 can also be influenced by a variety of confounders, including: cardiac function, renal function, hematocrit, magnetic field strength, contrast agent type and dosage, and specific delayed imaging time after contrast agent administration. To compe...

Two experiments were conducted with male broilers to 1) establish a methodology for predicting effective caloric value (ECV), defined as dietary caloric density (CD) necessary for broilers to achieve specific BW and feed conversion ratio (FCR) combinations under standardized conditions and 2) quantify the ECV attributable to pellet quality (PQ), defined as the pellet to pellet fines ratio in th...

Background The evaluation of right ventricle (RV) function is paramount in pulmonary hypertension (PAH) although it can be difficult to assess. Right ventricular myocardial fibrosis assessed using late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) has been correlated with right ventricular function and prognosis. Myocardial fibrosis can be evaluated by several methods, including LGE, ECV quantification using na...

Several clinical factors have been studied to predict atrial fibrillation (AF) recurrence after electrical cardioversion (ECV) with limited predictive value. In this work, several time-frequency parameters from the fibrillatory (f) waves characterization were studied to improve ECV outcome prediction at mid follow-up. By analyzing ECV outcome one month after the procedure of 63 persistent AF pa...

Background Reduction of post-contrast T1 in remote normal myocardium was recently reported in patients with AMI, indicating that extracellular matrix expansion occurs in remote myocardium early after MI. Such extracellular matrix expansion observed in non-infarcted myocardium without edema seems to be one of key factors causing LV remodeling after MI. However, since the previous study only dete...

BACKGROUND Adverse fibrotic remodeling is detrimental to myocardial health and a reliable method for monitoring the development of fibrotic remodeling may be desirable during the follow-up of patients after heart transplantation (HTx). Quantification of diffuse myocardial fibrosis with cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) has been increasingly applied and validated histologically in adult pa...

Methods Consecutive patients referred for clinical 1.5T (Siemens Aera) cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) evaluation of suspected heart disease were prospectively enrolled. T1 mapping was performed with a modified Look-Locker inversion recovery (MOLLI) sequence before and approximately 4, 10 and 20 minutes after an intravenous contrast bolus (Dotarem, gadoteric acid, 0.2 mmol/kg). Patients...

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...

Background Cardiac involvement is a major risk factor for sudden death in patients with systemic sarcoidosis. Pathologically, cardiac sarcoid lesions can be classified as early (mainly lymphocytic, similar to lymphocytic myocarditis), intermediate (active granulomatous), and late phase (primarily scar). These pathological processes can affect the myocardial extracellular space volume (ECV) in c...