Nilesh R. Ghugre1, Venkat Ramanan1,
Mihaela Pop2, Yuesong Yang1, Jennifer Barry1,
Beiping Qiang1, Kim Connelly3, Alexander J. Dick1,
Graham A. Wright1,2
1Imaging Research, Sunnybrook Health
Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada; 2Department of Medical
Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; 3Division
of Cardiology, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada
Pathophysiological
responses after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) include edema, hemorrhage
and microvascular obstruction (MVO) along with cellular damage. The in vivo evolution of these processes
throughout infarct healing has not been well characterized. The purpose of
our study was to monitor the time course of edema (T2), hemorrhage (T2*) and
MVO in porcine myocardium following AMI and to observe the relative
resolution of these pathophysiological mechanisms. Our study suggests that
quantitative T2 and T2* mapping techniques are potentially more specific than
intensity measures in single images, allowing regional, longitudinal and
cross-subject comparisons. Such in vivo
characterization will be important in grading severity and evaluating treatment
strategies in AMI, potentially improving clinical outcome.