Rahul
Rustogi1, Mauricio Galizia1, Jeremy Collins1,
Darshit Thakrar1, Asad Usman1, Bernd Jung2,
Daniela Foell3, Saurabh Shah4, James Carr1,
Michael Markl1
1Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, United States; 2Medical Physics, Freiburg University Medical Center, Freiburg, Germany; 3Cardiology, Freiburg University Medical Center, Freiburg, Germany; 4Siemens Healthcare, Chicago, United States
In a pilot study using a small cohort of post cardiac transplantation patients, we demonstrate the ability of novel non-invasive myocardial velocity mapping and T2 mapping to reveal underlying changes in myocardial structure and function. T2 maps assess myocardial edema while myocardial velocity maps detect changes in diastolic relaxation. Post transplant patients showed significant heterogeneity in distribution of T2 relaxation times and reduced peak radial and long axis velocities compared with normal control subjects. Very good agreement was found between independent readers indicating myocardial velocity mapping to be a highly reproducible method for assessing diastolic dysfunction.