Background Diffuse myocardial fibrosis (MF) in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is closely related to systolic and diastolic cardiac failure and could be identified as a major independent value prediciting clinical outcome. It results from elevated levels of collagen and is therefore associated with an expansion of the extracellular volume (ECV). Up to now, the detection of MF requires myocardial b...

Background Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is the most validated independent prognostic factor for mortality, ventricular arrhythmias and heart failure (HF) in non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy without etiology. However, mild or moderate reduction LVEF yield limited predictive value. The amount of fibrosis, detected by late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) on CMR, has also been validate...

BACKGROUND Disturbances in the myocardial extracellular volume fraction (ECV), such as diffuse or focal myocardial fibrosis or edema, are hallmarks of heart disease. Diffuse ECV changes are difficult to assess or quantify with cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) using conventional late gadolinium enhancement (LGE), or pre- or post-contrast T1-mapping alone. ECV measurement circumvents facto...

Background Measurement of native T1 and extracellular volume fraction (ECV) allow quantification of diffuse myocardial fibrosis. Normal references ranges are not definitively established. The concept of increasing fibrosis with age is widely held, despite a lack of supportive evidence from tissue studies some of which say the opposite (Olivetti 1991) or point to other age changes eg myocardial ...

PURPOSE To quantify extracellular matrix expansion with the cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) T1 mapping technique and the derived extracellular volume fraction (ECV) in diabetic cardiomyopathy (DbCM) patients and to detect the relationship among ECV, duration of diabetes, and diastolic function. MATERIALS Thirty-eight patients with diabetic cardiomyopathy (20 males, age 54.6 ± 8.6 year...

Background Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a common cardiovascular genetic disease characterized by sarcomeric gene mutations which lead to findings of cardiac hypertrophy, myocyte disarray, and fibrosis. While late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) detects focal, macroscopic regions of replacement fibrosis non-invasively, novel T1 CMR measurement techniques in...

Background Development of diffuse myocardial fibrosis in aortic stenosis (AS) has been associated with an adverse prognosis. Measurement of extracellular volume (ECV) from T1 mapping contrast magnetic resonance (CMR), has been recently validated as a non-invasive method for assessment of such diffuse myocardial fibrosis.Our objective was to evaluate the functional consequences of diffuse myocar...

Background CMR techniques are increasingly being used to evaluate myocardial extracellular volume (ECV). In the most commonly applied method, ECV is quantified using haematocrit-adjusted myocardial and blood T1 values measured before and after gadolinium bolus. The technique is based on a two-compartment model, assuming contrast kinetic effects to be negligible due to a dynamic equilibrium betw...

Background MR Fingerprinting (MRF) [1] offers a novel approach for quantifying extracellular volume (ECV) in a single scan without contrast agent. Whereas conventional parameter mapping assumes chemical exchange occurs much faster than the experiment time scale, usually on the order of T1, MRF measurements are acquired every TR (less than 12ms). This project investigates the feasibility of a ne...

BACKGROUND In adults, dosages of some anaesthetic agents are based on lean body mass (LBM) rather than body weight. Our aim was to derive an equation for estimating LBM in children. METHODS Patients comprised three groups: prospective kidney transplant donors from two separate centres (centres 1 and 3) and children referred to a further centre (centre 2) for the routine clinical measurement o...