Chun Yuan

Matthias Stuber

Imaging of the heart remains time consuming, operator dependent, and inefficient. New paradigms that combine modern image acquisition and reconstruction strategies promise significantly improved ease-of-use and time efficiency. These are critical ingredient for a more wide-spread adoption and improved clinical impact of cardiac MR in general.

Sainan Cheng, Mengjie Fang, Di Dong, Jie Tian, Shihua Zhao

In this study, we evaluated the prognostic value of texture features based on late gadolinium enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance (LGE-CMR) images in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients with systolic dysfunction. 1.5 T CMR cine and LGE images were performed on 67 HCM patients with systolic dysfunction. Texture features were extracted from LGE images. Cox proportional hazard analysis and Kaplan-Meier analysis were used to determine the association of texture features with event free survival. The result showed that increased LGE heterogeneity (higher X0_GLRLM_energy, higher X1_H_uniformity, lower X0_H_skewness and lower X0_GLCM_cluster_tendency) was associated with adverse events in HCM patients with systolic dysfunction.

Christopher Johns, James Wild, Pankaj Garg, Calum Sowden, Ibrahim Mahmoud, Smitha Rajaram, Charlie Elliot, Robin Condliffe, Athanasios Charalampopoulos, David Kiely, Andrew Swift

Patients with left heart disease commonly develop pulmonary hypertension (PH) [1], initially due to passive backward transmission of high left ventricular filling pressures through the pulmonary circulation. Assessment of left atrial reservoir and pump function using changes in left atrial area over time are useful to differentiate patients with left heart disease from other cases of suspected pulmonary hypertension (Mann-Whitney u test p-value 0.0015 and 0.0067 respectively).

Yibin Xie, Anthony Christodoulou, Nan Wang, Zixin Deng, Bill Zhou, Wei Yu, Debiao Li

Multi-contrast MRI is a promising yet under-utilized imaging modality for evaluating the disease status of atherosclerosis. Major drawbacks of conventional protocols include long complex scan procedures and variability in image interpretation due to the qualitative nature of the images. In this work we propose a highly efficient MRI technique, qMATCH, which allows for all-in-one quantitative evaluation of carotid atherosclerosis.   Preliminary results in phantom, normal subjects, and patients with known carotid atherosclerosis are reported. 

Patrick Magrath, Pierangelo Renella, Nancy Halnon, Subha Raman, Daniel Ennis

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) severely impacts heart health. Decreasing LV ejection fraction (EF) is a late and highly variable outcome in this cohort. Earlier indications of cardiac involvement would improve patient management and provide insight into the utility of emerging therapy. Boys with DMD (N=25) and healthy volunteers (N=8) underwent cardiac MRI exams including short-axis tagged images. EF, peak LV twist, and peak mid-wall circumferential strain (E_cc) were estimated. E_cc and twist were significantly reduced in patients (9.3°±4.3° vs. 14.8°±3.6°, p< 0.004) and (-15.8±5.8% vs. -18.5±3.2%, p<0.02). Whereas, EF was not significantly different between groups. ~50% of DMD patients with normal EF had reduced twist and E_cc. Reduced peak LV twist and mid-wall E_cc measured by MR tagging may be earlier and more sensitive indicators of cardiac involvement in boys with DMD.

Julio Garcia, Mohammed Elbaz, Carmen Lydell, Andrew Howarth, Frank Prato, Maria Drangova, Rebecca Thornhill, Pablo Nery, Stephen Wilton, Allan Skanes, Faramarz Samavati, James White

This study may be of interest for clinicians and researchers who study left atrial diseases and arrhythmias. This study demonstrated a significant decrease of flow energetics and vortex size in patients with history of atrial fibrillation.