Angus Z. Lau1, 2, Albert P. Chen3, William Dominguez-Viqueira2, Yiping Gu2, Jennifer Barry2, Kim A. Connelly4, Charles H. Cunningham1, 2
1Dept. of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; 2Imaging Research, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; 3GE Healthcare, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; 4Keenan Research Centre, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michaels Hospital and University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
We characterize the reproducibility of hyperpolarized cardiac metabolic measurements in a cohort of normal pigs using a time-resolved, dual respiratory and cardiac-gated, multi-slice, single-shot 13C pulse sequence. The time-resolved nature of the imaging sequence enabled normalization using the first pass of the pyruvate bolus through the heart. Normalization reduced the variability (%CV = mean/SD) for metabolic measurements, with 57% CV for bicarbonate and 29% CV for lactate signals in the heart. Along with increases in LDH activity in ischemia, our results suggest that lactate imaging may be a sensitive marker of metabolic remodeling in ischemic heart disease.