Abstract #1295

Quantitative Assessment of Microscopic Fibrosis in Patients with Primary Aldosteronism Using Dynamic Contrast Enhancement

Mao-Yuan Marine Su¹, Ven-Cent Wu², Hsi-Yu Yu³, Wen-Yih Isaac Tseng^1,4

¹Medical Imaging, National Taiwan University Hosptial, Taipei, Taiwan; ²Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hosptial, Taipei, Taiwan; ³Surgery, National Taiwan University Hosptial, Taipei, Taiwan; ⁴Center for Optoelectronic Biomedicine, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan

For patients with primary aldosteronism (PA), aldosterone induced diffuse and microscopic fibrosis in the myocardium is difficult to be detected on the images of late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) MRI. In this study, we proposed a dynamic contrast enhancement method to detect the presence of microscopic fibrosis. In patients with PA, our results showed a significantly lower down-slope index (1.100.16 vs. 1.290.21; p=0.02) and a significantly higher end-point value index (0.880.02 vs. 0.850.03; p=0.04) compared to the normal subjects. These findings indicate the delayed wash-out and prolonged retention of the contrast medium in the myocardium, and suggest that there is increased amount of microscopic fibrosis in the myocardium. Therefore, we conclude that the proposed dynamic contrast enhancement method is capable of detecting the presence of microscopic fibrosis.