Myocardial strain analysis with CMR in cardiotoxicity patients using deformation field analysis: Comparison to healthy volunteers and heart transplant patients

Background Noninvasive monitoring of cardiac function in patients with iatrogenic or environmentally-induced cardiotoxicity is of prime importance as a measure of disease severity. Strain imaging at cardiac MR (CMR) has been previously shown to be a highly robust modality in the detection of early cardiac dysfunction in the heart failure population. However, strain analysis has not previously been applied in the assessment of cardiotoxicity patients. The purpose of this study is to compare radial and circumferential LV strain values in patients with known cardiotoxicity to healthy volunteers and post-heart transplant patients, and to then correlate the cardiotoxicity strain values to calculated LV ejection fractions.