Imaging of acute myocardial infarction by magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) using the paramagnetic relaxation substance gadolinium-DTPA

Abstract

Twenty-six patients admitted to the Free University of Berlin University Hospital catheterization laboratory with acute myocardial infarction were studied. The diagnosis was confirmed by angiography, but acute revascularization was unsuccessful in every case. MR imaging was performed within 7 days of the acute event in 11 patients with uncomplicated clinical courses after acute infarction. Imaging was performed within 3 weeks in three additional cases, while the remaining 12 patients underwent studies more than 3 weeks after infarction. We determined signal intensity at three points within the area of infarction and at three other points in adjacent myocardial tissue. Decreased signal intensity within the area of infarction was found in native scans in 60% of all cases. Administration of gadolinium-DTPA 0.1 mmol/kg body weight was followed by a mean 70% increase in signal intensity within the zones of acute infarction, as compared to a 20% increase in surrounding myocardial tissue. In cases of subacute and chronic infarction, there was no significant signal enhancement after administration of gadolinium-DTPA. Uptake of the substance in the area of acute infarction may be a positive marker of acute myocardial necrosis and as such may prove useful in the clinical setting.

Optimization of myocardial nulling in pediatric cardiac MRI

“…The optimal time for LGE imaging observed in this study was earlier than that reported for adults [2,4,10,11,20]. These results are consistent with the findings of Baker et al [21], who found significant age-related changes in elimination half-life of gadolinium, specifically a significantly increased elimination half-life in the younger age group.…”

Influence of Contrast Agent Dose and Image Acquisition Timing on the Quantitative Determination of Nonviable Myocardial Tissue Using Delayed Contrast?Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging

“…Delayed contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (ceMRI) has been shown to identify areas of irreversible myocardial injury due to infarction (MI) in the acute (Dendale et al, 1998;de Roos et al, 1989;Eichstaedt et al, 1989;Fieno et al, 2000;Judd et al, 1995;Kim et al, 1996Kim et al, , 1999Kramer et al, 2000;Lima et al, 1995;Oshinski et al, 2001;Saeed et al, 2001;Van Rossum et al, 1990;Wu et al, 1998;Yokota et al, 1995), subacute (Choi et al, 2001;Fieno et al, 2000;Kim et al, 1999;Petersen et al, 2003;Rogers et al, 1999), and chronic phase (Choi et al, 2001;Fedele et al, 1994;Fieno et al, 2000;Kim et al, 1999Kim et al, , 2000Lauerma et al, 2000;Petersen et al, 2003;Ramani et al, 1998;Rogers et al, 1999;Sandstede et al, 2000a) of MI. The high spatial resolution of the technique allows precise quantification of nonviable myocardium.…”

Assessment of cardiac function, blood flow and myocardial tissue relaxation parameters at 0.35 T

“…While contrast agent relaxivity is expected to be higher at lower field, 21,63 the significantly shorter native T1 may reduce the relative enhancement that these techniques rely on. The effect on postcontrast blood‐myocardium signal intensities and sensitivity to pathological tissue changes such as myocardial fibrosis, edema and inflammation at lower field strengths needs to be evaluated further 23,64–67 . Other limitations of this study include the small sample size, the inclusion of young healthy volunteers only, and the large time difference between scans at the different field strengths.…”