Abstract #1867

Can Chronic Cardiac Allograft Rejection (CCAR) Be Detected Before Irreversible Vascular Changes Occur? Noninvasive Assessment of CCAR by Cellular MR Imaging in a Rat Model

Qing Ye¹, Yijen L. Wu², Lesley M. Foley², Parker H. Mills², T Kevin Hitchens², Fang-Cheng Yeh²,³, Haosen Zhang², Danielle F. Eytan², Li Liu², Chien Ho²

¹NMR Center for Biomedical Research and Department of Biological Sciences , Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh, PA, United States; ²NMR Center for Biomedical Research and Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; ³Department of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Chronic cardiac allograft rejection (CCAR) remains a major obstacle for long-term heart graft survival. Early identification the disease by noninvasive method is highly desirable. By using cellular MRI, we investigated the characteristics of CCAR progression over time in a rat model. Our preliminary results revealed that CCAR appears heterogeneous in its early stages and the accumulation of iron-labeled cells can be an indicator of the lesion formation prior to irreversible vascular changes occur. Cellular MRI is able to evaluate graft status noninvasively over time, which may be a reliable alternative for assessment of CCAR and potentially translatable to clinical work.