Myocardial strain analysis in patients with acute myocarditis and healthy controls using cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) at 3-Tesla and feature tracking post-processing

Congress:

ESCR 2014

Poster Number:

454

Type:

Scientific Poster

Keywords:

MR, Cardiac, Diagnostic procedure, Infection

Authors:

J. Dörner¹, J. Luetkens¹, D. Thomas¹, D. Kuetting¹, R. Homsi¹, D. Dabir¹, J. Schwab², H. Schild¹, C. P. Nähle²; ¹Bonn/DE, ²DE

DOI:

DOI-Link:

https://dx.doi.org/

Fig. 1: Graphes visualizing changes of myocardial function.

Fig. 2: Representative strain curves derived from a patient with myocarditis showing...

Fig. 3: Quantitative strain values derived from the same patient with myocarditis.

Purpose

Acute myocarditis is frequently observed clinically, and is associated with a high morbidity and mortality in the acute phase and long-term. Feature tracking (FT, TomTec Imaging Systems) was evaluated as a post-processing tool for detection of strain alterations in patients with acute myocarditis compared to healthy controls.

Methods and Materials

15 patients (11 male, 4 female) admitted with acute myocarditis were included in this study. 10 (5 male, 5 female) patients who were examined for other indications served as healthy controls. CMR was performed on a 3-Tesla whole body scanner (Ingenia, Philips Healthcare). CMR included balanced-SSFP cine imaging in short axis with coverage of the whole heart allowing for ejection fraction (EF) calculation, and in 4-chamber orientation. Circumferential and longitudinal strain as well as global radial displacement was assessed using FT.

Results

Age was similar in the study population and the control group (33.7±10.7years vs. 34.0±18.6years, p>0.9). EF was significantly reduced in patients with acute myocarditis (57.4±9.5% vs. 65.4±6.3%, p<0.05). Global circumferential (-22.7±3.2% vs. -26.2±4.1%, p<0.05) and global longitudinal strain (17.2±2.7% vs. 19.9±2.6%, p<0.05) as well as global radial displacement (4.9±0.7mm vs. 5.9±0.8mm, p<0.01) were significantly reduced in patients with myocarditis.

Conclusion

FT allows for quantitative assessment of strain parameters and detection of strain alterations in patients with acute myocarditis without the need of additional dedicated tagging sequences. Further studies need to evaluate the clinical value of segmental analysis especially in patients with myocarditis and preserved EF.