MRI evaluation of injectable hyaluronic acid-based hydrogel therapy to limit ventricular remodeling after myocardial infarction.

Injectable biomaterials are an attractive therapy to attenuate left ventricular (LV) remodeling after myocardial infarction (MI). Although studies have shown that injectable hydrogels improve cardiac structure and function in vivo, temporal changes in infarct material properties after treatment have not been assessed. Emerging imaging and modeling techniques now allow for serial, non-invasive estimation of infarct material properties. Specifically, cine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) assesses global LV structure and function, late-gadolinium enhancement (LGE) MRI enables visualization of infarcted tissue to quantify infarct expansion, and spatial modulation of magnetization (SPAMM) tagging provides passive wall motion assessment as a measure of tissue strain, which can all be used to evaluate infarct properties when combined with finite element (FE) models. In this work, we investigated the temporal effects of degradable hyaluronic acid (HA) hydrogels on global LV remodeling, infarct thinning and expansion, and infarct stiffness in a porcine infarct model for 12 weeks post-MI using MRI and FE modeling. Hydrogel treatment led to decreased LV volumes, improved ejection fraction, and increased wall thickness when compared to controls. FE model simulations demonstrated that hydrogel therapy increased infarct stiffness for 12 weeks post-MI. Thus, evaluation of myocardial tissue properties through MRI and FE modeling provides insight into the influence of injectable hydrogel therapies on myocardial structure and function post-MI.

Atherosclerosis imaging using 3D black blood TSE SPACE vs 2D TSE.

AIM: To compare 3D Black Blood turbo spin echo (TSE) sampling perfection with application-optimized contrast using different flip angle evolution (SPACE) vs 2D TSE in evaluating atherosclerotic plaques in multiple vascular territories. METHODS: The carotid, aortic, and femoral arterial walls of 16 patients at risk for cardiovascular or atherosclerotic disease were studied using both 3D black blood magnetic resonance imaging SPACE and conventional 2D multi-contrast TSE sequences using a consolidated imaging approach in the same imaging session. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed on the images. Agreement of morphometric measurements between the two imaging sequences was assessed using a two-sample t-test, calculation of the intra-class correlation coefficient and by the method of linear regression and Bland-Altman analyses. RESULTS: No statistically significant qualitative differences were found between the 3D SPACE and 2D TSE techniques for images of the carotids and aorta. For images of the femoral arteries, however, there were statistically significant differences in all four qualitative scores between the two techniques. Using the current approach, 3D SPACE is suboptimal for femoral imaging. However, this may be due to coils not being optimized for femoral imaging. Quantitatively, in our study, higher mean total vessel area measurements for the 3D SPACE technique across all three vascular beds were observed. No significant differences in lumen area for both the right and left carotids were observed between the two techniques. Overall, a significant-correlation existed between measures obtained between the two approaches. CONCLUSION: Qualitative and quantitative measurements between 3D SPACE and 2D TSE techniques are comparable. 3D-SPACE may be a feasible approach in the evaluation of cardiovascular patients.