A magnetization transfer based MRI technique for measurement of cardiac fibrosis was applied to 34 end stage renal disease patients on routine hemodialysis and 19 controls. Short axis maps of changes in tissue magnetization transfer properties were combined to create 3D domains in which anatomical connectivity of voxels in the myocardium was linearized. Connected component analysis was used to isolate distinct spatially connected sub-regions of myocardium and fractal analysis of magnetization transfer changes was applied to the whole myocardium as well as these sub-regions. The measured fractal dimensions show tissue-level structural differences between the different tissue types and patient populations.
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