Keywords:
MR, Cardiac, MR-Diffusion/Perfusion, Computer Applications-Detection, diagnosis, Contrast agent-intravenous, Diagnostic procedure, Inflammation, Hyperplasia / Hypertrophy, Haematologic diseases
Authors:
C. Cholet1, J. Mayer1, F. Legou1, F. Ridouani2, T. Damy2, A. Luciani1, H. Kobeiter1, A. Rahmouni1, J. F. Deux1; 1Créteil/FR, 2Paris/FR
Purpose
Cardiac MR (CMR) can provide important informations in the diagnosis of cardiac amyloidosis (CA).
Late Gadolinium Enhancement (LGE) sequences usually show a typical pattern of diffuse or subendocardial circumferential myocardial enhancement after gadolinium administration.
An increase of myocardial thickness is frequently associated.
Recently,
some authors have reported that myocardial T1 is increased in CA using T1 mapping sequences.
Steady State Free Precession (SSFP) cine sequences are currently used to measure left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and ventricular volumes.
The signal of SSFP images depends on the T2/T1 tissue relaxation time ratio.
SSFP sequence can therefore theorically detect an increase of myocardial water-content (T2 effect) and/or a captation of gadolinium by myocardium after injection (T1 effect).
Several studies have shown the utility of SSFP sequence in different pathological conditions.
Because CA is an infiltrative process with deposit of abnormal amyloid proteins whithin myocardial tissue,
we test the hypothesis that SSFP sequence may detect variation of myocardial signal in patients with CA.
Clinical application was to assess the efficiency of such sequence in the diagnosis of CA.