IDENTIFICATION OF MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION USING THREE-DIMENSIONAL STRAIN TENSOR FRACTIONAL ANISOTROPY

Accurate localization of myocardial viability is important in diagnosis of infarction. Regional strain function provides excessive information for clinical decision making but comparison of strain tensor profiles across differing tissue types is usually difficult due to multivariate nature of tensors. It is desirable to describe tensors with simplified scalar indices which are more mathematically and statistically intuitive. In this work, anisotropy of tensors in healthy and experimental infarct regions in a large animal model is assessed and compared to directional components of strain tensors which are currently the most popular indices in active use. Myocardial strain tensors are computed using zHARP, a magnetic resonance (MR) tagging technique that provides quantification of cardiac function with direct computation of three-dimensional tensors from two-dimensional short axis MR images. Fractional anisotropy of strain tensors shows high correlation with late gadolinium enhanced images and is capable of discrimination between healthy and infarcted regions.