Background The transmural extent of myocardial infarction (MI) as assessed by late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) CMR predicts functional recovery. In acute MI (AMI), myocardial edema and effects of reperfusion therapy reduce the predictive accuracy of LGE. LGE assesses tissue dichotomously as “viable” or “non-viable”, but does not consider the severity of tissue damage within the hyperenhanced i...

BACKGROUND The optimal management of chronic severe primary degenerative mitral regurgitation (MR) is to repair the valve but identification of the optimal timing of surgery remains challenging. Current guidelines suggest 'watchful waiting' until the onset of symptoms or left ventricular (LV) dysfunction but these have been challenged as promoting 'rescue surgery'. Better predictors are require...

Background Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) patients often exhibit signs and symptoms of cardiac ischemia with an overall increased prevalence of coronary artery disease (CAD), coronary microvascular dysfunction and myocarditis in this population. Potentially, these processes may be associated with subclinical changes in myocardial tissue. Elevated native myocardial T1 and extracellular volum...

Methods This study included 50 patients with clinically suspected myocarditis, who underwent CMR at 1.5 Tesla. T1 quantification was performed on three short (basis, center, apex) and on three long axis slices (2-, 3and 4-chamber orientation), respectively. The modified Look-Locker inversionrecovery (MOLLI) sequence was used before and 15 minutes after administration of 0.075 mmol/kg Gadolinium...

Background Diffuse myocardial fibrosis is frequently observed in histologies of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). T1-mapping techniques have the potential to measure fibrosis quantitatively and therefore provide novel cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) insights into myocardial tissue characterization beyond the presently employed late gadolinium enhanced (LGE) techniques. Fibrosis results in expansio...

Background Elevated high sensitivity cardiac troponin (cTnT) levels, LVEF, and the degree of myocardial replacement fibrosis (RF) have been shown to be significantly associated with cardiovascular outcomes. However, the relationship amongst them has yet to be studied. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) has become the gold standard for viability imaging and accurately characterizing RF. Recently, ...

UNLABELLED In order to be able to compare individuals of differing size, glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is conventionally indexed to body surface area (BSA). This does not, however, suit children because they naturally have a relatively high BSA simply because of their small size. The aim of the study was to identify an appropriate simple whole-body variable based on height and weight suitabl...

BACKGROUND Cardiovascular magnetic resonance T1 mapping characteristics are elevated in adult cancer survivors; however, it remains unknown whether these elevations are related to age or presence of coincident cardiovascular comorbidities. METHODS AND RESULTS We performed blinded cardiovascular magnetic resonance analyses of left ventricular T1 and extracellular volume (ECV) fraction in 327 i...

BACKGROUND Cardiac involvement predicts outcome in systemic AL amyloidosis and influences therapeutic options. Current methods of cardiac assessment do not quantify myocardial amyloid burden. We used equilibrium contrast cardiovascular magnetic resonance (EQ-CMR) to quantify the cardiac interstitial compartment, measured as myocardial extracellular volume (ECV) fraction, hypothesizing it would ...

Analysis of the only complete early cercopithecoid (Old World monkey) endocast currently known, that of 15-million-year (Myr)-old Victoriapithecus, reveals an unexpectedly small endocranial volume (ECV) relative to body size and a large olfactory bulb volume relative to ECV, similar to extant lemurs and Oligocene anthropoids. However, the Victoriapithecus brain has principal and arcuate sulci o...