OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of mean heart rate and heart rate variability on the image quality of dual-source CT coronary angiography. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Eighty patients underwent dual-source CT coronary angiography. Thirteen data sets were reconstructed in 5% steps from 20-80% of the ...

OBJECTIVE: In MDCT coronary angiography, image artifacts are the major cause of false-positive and false-negative interpretations regarding the presence of coronary artery stenoses. Hence, it is important that observers reporting these investigations are aware of the potential presence of image artifacts and that these artifacts are recognized. CONCLUSION: The article ...

The different levels of deoxyhemoglobin in the ischemic myocardium, induced by stressors such as dipyridamole, can be detected by blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) MRI and may be used to diagnose myocardial ischemia. The aim of this study was to assess the signal change in the myocardium on BOLD MRI as ...

Very little is known about the accuracy of intravenous myocardial contrast echocadiography (MCE) in the detection of myocardial hibernation. There are also currently no data on the comparison of MCE to late gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance (LGE-MR) in this clinical setting. The aim of this pilot study was to predict recovery ...

PURPOSE: To prospectively investigate whether there is support for the hypothesis that clinically unrecognized myocardial infarctions (UMIs) detected at magnetic resonance (MR) imaging have an atherosclerotic pathogenesis similar to that of recognized myocardial infarctions (RMIs). MATERIALS AND METHODS: After ethics committee approval and informed consent were obtained, gadolinium-enhanced whole-body MR ...

The purpose was to study dobutamine magnetic resonance cine imaging (DOB-MRI) and delayed myocardial contrast enhancement (DE) early after reperfused acute myocardial infarction (AMI) for the predicion of segmental myocardial recovery and to find the optimal dose of dobutamine. Fifty patients (56+/-12 years, 42 males) with reperfused AMI underwent DOB-MRI ...

PURPOSE: This study compared ability of multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) to detect and size the myocardial infarctions (MI) with MRI. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eighty examination sets of MDCT and MRI of 63 consecutive patients in the acute stage (average 6.3 days, n=40) and/or chronic stage (average, 11.8 months; n=40) of ...

PURPOSE: To evaluate reconstruction intervals and image quality in dual-source computed tomography (DSCT) coronary angiography for optimal placement of the ECG-pulsing window. MATERIALS AND METHODS: DSCT coronary angiography was performed in 60 patients. Thirteen datasets were reconstructed in 5% increments from 20-80%. Two readers independently assessed image quality of each ...

OBJECTIVES: The recent newer advances in computed tomography have dramatically changed our approach to imaging cardiac disease. This study sought to compare the diagnostic value of 16-multi-detector spiral computed tomography (MSCT) for detecting coronary artery stenosis. METHODS: A total of 88 consecutive patients (52 men, mean age 68 +/- 8 ...

Delayed-enhancement magnetic resonance imaging (DE-MRI) can be used to visualize myocardial infarction (MI). DE-MRI is conventionally acquired with an inversion-recovery gradient-echo (IR-GRE) pulse sequence that yields a single bright-blood image. IR-GRE imaging requires an accurate estimate of the inversion time (TI) to null the signal from the myocardium, and a ...

Coronary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is a powerful noninvasive technique with high soft-tissue contrast for the visualization of the coronary anatomy without X-ray exposure. Due to the small dimensions and tortuous nature of the coronary arteries, a high spatial resolution and sufficient volumetric coverage have to be obtained. However, this ...

OBJECTIVES: To test the feasibility and performance of a 4D magnetic resonance coronary angiography sequence compared with conventional inversion recovery (IR) prepared gradient echo imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A 4D sequence with 100 milliseconds temporal resolution was implemented on a 1.5 T system. Five minipigs were examined after administration of ...

Myocarditis is a serious and life-threatening illness, which can pose a significant diagnostic dilemma at presentation. We report 2 patients with clinical myocarditis who had distinctive findings at coronary computed tomography. Both patients demonstrated delayed myocardial enhancement with iodinated contrast. The morphologic features of the enhancement were similar to the ...

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: To compare the diagnostic value of magnetic resonance (MR) and computed tomography (CT) for the detection of coronary artery disease (CAD) with special regard to calcifications. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-seven patients with known CAD were examined with a targeted, navigator-gated, free-breathing, steady-state free precession MR angiography sequence ...

Multislice CT coronary angiography (CT-CA) has emerged as a potential imaging method for coronary artery disease. This study aimed to ascertain the accuracy of 16-slice CT in the diagnosis of significant coronary stenosis (>or=50% reduction of lumen diameter). This mixed retrospective/prospective observational study compared 95 paired 16-slice CT-CA and fluoroscopic ...

Despite progress in prevention and early diagnosis, coronary artery disease (CAD) remains one of the leading causes of mortality in the world. For many years, invasive X-ray coronary angiography has been the method of choice for the diagnosis of significant CAD. However, up to 40% of patients referred for elective ...

Approximately 50% of the patients with chronic obstructive coronary artery disease resulting in chronic contractile dysfunction have hibernating myocardium and may benefit from revascularization. This pooled analysis describes the relative merits of dobutamine echocardiography, thallium-201 and technetium-99m scintigraphy, positron emission tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging, for the diagnosis of hibernating ...

Multislice computed tomography (MSCT) provides high accuracy for noninvasive assessment of coronary artery disease (CAD). The introduction of the latest computed tomography (CT) technology allows comprehensive evaluation of various aspects of CAD, including the coronary calcium score, coronary artery stenoses, bypass patency, and myocardial function. Other applications, such as plaque ...

The two most common methods for measuring perfusion with MRI are based on dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) and arterial spin labeling (ASL). Although clinical experience to date is much more extensive with DSC perfusion MRI, ASL methods offer several advantages. The primary advantages are that completely noninvasive absolute cerebral blood ...

OBJECTIVES: To implement myocardial first-pass perfusion imaging at 3 Tesla and to evaluate the potential benefit with regard to signal parameters in comparison to 1.5 Tesla using identical sequence settings and an intraindividual comparison. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In 16 volunteers, myocardial first-pass perfusion imaging was performed at 1.5 Tesla (Magnetom ...

Peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD) is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in the western world. The development of noninvasive methods for assessment and comparison of the efficacy of novel therapies in animal models is of great importance. METHODS: Hindlimb ischemia was induced in nude mice by ligation and ...

The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of quantifying myocardial blood flow (MBF) and rate of myocardial oxygen consumption (MVO(2)) during pharmacologically induced stress without using a contrast agent. The former was measured by the arterial spin labeling (ASL) method and the latter was obtained by measuring ...

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility and accuracy of 16-slice computed tomography (CT) in the assessment of coronary stent patency. CT coronary angiography (CA) has a high degree of accuracy in the assessment of coronary artery disease compared with invasive selective CA. However, its accuracy in the evaluation ...

PURPOSE: To retrospectively evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of multidetector computed tomography (CT) coronary angiography for detection of hemodynamically significant (>or=50%) stenoses by using various image postprocessing methods, with conventional coronary angiography as the reference standard. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The analysis used data from previous studies, use of which had been ...

The feasibility of three-dimensional (3D) whole-heart imaging of the coronary venous (CV) system was investigated. The hypothesis that coronary magnetic resonance venography (CMRV) can be improved by using an intravascular contrast agent (CA) was tested. A simplified model of the contrast in T(2)-prepared steady-state free precession (SSFP) imaging was applied ...

BACKGROUND: In patients with chronic left ventricular dysfunction, the size of the viable cardiac muscle is correlated with the prognosis and the outcome of myocardial revascularization. PURPOSE: To evaluate the diagnostic value of various imaging techniques in determination of myocardial ischemia and viability. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A chronic myocardial ischemia ...

Owing to ongoing technical refinements and intense scientific and clinical evaluations, computed tomography (CT) of the heart has left the research realm and matured into a clinical application that is about to fulfill its promise to replace invasive cardiac catheterization in selected patient populations. CT coronary angiography is technically more ...

PURPOSE: Multislice computed tomography (MSCT) is an emerging noninvasive technique for detecting coronary artery stenoses. An intraindividual study comparing 16- and 64-slice CT coronary angiography is highly desirable but has not been performed thus far. We sought to intraindividually compare MSCT using 16 and 64 simultaneous detector rows for noninvasive ...

Over the last decade, imaging of myocardial viability has become a well-established indication in patients suffering from myocardial infarction. Myocardial viability imaging is routinely performed using (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography, single-photon emission computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging. Only recently have several multi-slice spiral computed tomography (MSCT) techniques been evaluated ...

With the recent emergence of multidetector computed tomography angiography, coronary anatomy can now be assessed noninvasively. Until this advancement, functional noninvasive imaging used to serve as a gatekeeper that governed access to invasive diagnosis by coronary angiography and subsequent therapy. In the current era the threshold for access to coronary ...

Pathologic studies have shown an increased lipid content in areas of myocardial infarction (MI). We sought to show the ability of precontrast T1-weighted MRI to noninvasively detect fat deposition in MI and show its association with infarct age. Thirty-two patients with MI were studied. Precontrast inversion-recovery (IR) cine steady-state free ...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the gadolinium performance for 16-detector-row coronary computed tomography (CT) angiography. METHODS: Ethics committee approval and informed consent were obtained. Ten patients with coronary artery disease underwent digital coronary angiography and gadolinium-enhanced CT coronary angiography (Gd-CTCA) within the same week. For the Gd-CTCA, each patient received a dose ...

One of the most intriguing developments in ultrasound imaging of the heart was the use of contrast media to assess myocardial perfusion, which sparked tremendous interest and over the years generated a significant body of research. Although most published work has been based on the use of contrast for 2D ...

BACKGROUND: High-quality attenuation maps are critical for attenuation correction of myocardial perfusion single photon emission computed tomography studies. The filtered backprojection (FBP) approach can introduce errors, especially with low-count transmission data. We present a new method for attenuation map reconstruction and examine its performance in phantom and patient data. METHODS ...

Functional imaging might increase the role of imaging in muscular diseases, since alterations of muscle morphology alone are not specific for a particular disease. Perfusion, i.e., the blood flow per tissue and time unit including capillary flow, is an important functional parameter. Pathological changes of skeletal muscle perfusion can be ...

BACKGROUND: Microvascular dysfunction in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) may create an ischemic substrate conducive to sudden death, but it remains unknown whether the extent of hypertrophy is associated with proportionally poorer perfusion reserve. Comparisons between magnitude of hypertrophy, impairment of perfusion reserve, and extent of fibrosis may offer new insights for ...

BACKGROUND: The availability of a non-invasive test to detect and quantify interstitial and replacement fibrosis would be a useful advance for evaluation of cardiac therapies that could prevent fibrosis progression. There is an established role for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the assessment of replacement fibrosis (when fibrosis replaces myocytes), ...

Several studies have described nonuniform blurring of myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) due to respiration. This article describes a technique for correcting the respiration effect and assesses its effectiveness in clinical studies. METHODS: Simulated phantoms, physical phantoms, and patient scans were used in this study. A heart phantom, which oscillated back ...

OBJECTIVES: The present pilot study aimed to assess the practicality, safety and accuracy of performing CT coronary angiography (CT-CA) in the evaluation of acute chest pain of patients with low thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) risk scores. METHODS: The present prospective observational study was undertaken in a university teaching hospital ...

A natural extension of current imaging paradigms for diagnosing coronary artery disease may well be the integration of CT with myocardial perfusion single-photon CT (SPECT). Although there is a wealth of clinical information regarding the utility of SPECT, the value of CT in the cardiology arena has only recently been ...

Computed tomography coronary angiography (CT-CA) is becoming a popular non-invasive coronary imaging method. We aimed to determine the proportion of coronary segments assessable on a 16-slice CT in comparison with conventional selective coronary angiography (SCA). We identified all patients who had both 16-slice CT-CA and recent SCA (less than 12 ...

BACKGROUND: Adenosine stress magnetic resonance perfusion (MRP) and dobutamine stress magnetic resonance (DSMR) wall motion analyses are highly accurate for the detection of myocardial ischemia. However, knowledge about the prognostic value of stress MR examinations is limited. We sought to determine the value of MRP and DSMR, as assessed during ...

BACKGROUND: The assessment of myocardial viability after global warm ischemia (WI) but before reperfusion is challenging. We hypothesized that fractional anisotropy (FA), a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) parameter of water diffusion that characterizes cellular integrity within tissues, provides a rapid and useful method for evaluating the viability of hearts after ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess myocardial viability in acute and subacute infarcts using different multislice spiral computed tomography contrast protocols with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) correlation. METHODS: Seven pigs were studied with 64-multislice spiral computed tomography and MRI (1.5 T) at a median of 1 and 21 days after temporary occlusion of ...

Recent advances in computed tomography (CT) technology have made this technique useful in evaluating coronary anatomy. Although CT has been the method of choice to evaluate vascular anatomy of the thorax for many years, the coronary arteries, until recently, could not be imaged with diagnostic quality due to cardiac and ...

Coronary artery disease remains the leading cause of death in the Western world. Non-invasive coronary artery imaging challenges any diagnostic modality because the coronary arteries are small and tortuous, whereas cardiac contraction and respiration cause motion artifacts. Therefore, non-invasive coronary imaging requires high spatial and temporal resolution. This review discusses ...

CT and MR are two noninvasive imaging techniques that are capable of detecting different aspects of coronary artery disease (CAD). Both techniques can directly and noninvasively visualize the coronary artery tree, allowing detection of atherosclerotic plaques, coronary stenosis, or occlusion. In addition to direct anatomic visualization, MR also allows assessment ...

Acute myocardial infarction and its sequelae are the leading cause of death in the United States. Diagnostic imaging of myocardial infarction in both acute and chronic settings provides valuable prognostic information for clinical decision making. Cardiovascular MRI is unique in its ability to offer several different methods for predicting prognosis ...

Point Biomedical Corp is developing PB-127 (CardioSphere) as an ultrasound imaging agent for assessing myocardial perfusion in patients with coronary artery disease. In January 2006, the company submitted an NDA for the agent; this was accepted for review in February 2006, with a Prescription Drug User Fee Act review and ...

Contrast Media and Molecular Imaging, MR imaging in assessing cardiovascular interventions and myocardial injury, Alexis Jacquier, Charles B. Higgins and Maythem Saeed, published in CMMI 2:1, DOI: 10.1002/cmmi122, pp1-15.Contract/Grant Sponsor information relating to Dr. A. Jacquier was absent from the published article.It should be noted that Dr. A. Jacquier was ...