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Retrospective Cardiac Gating with A Prototype Small-Animal X-ray Computed Tomograph
Published on: February 21, 2025
652
Minimally Invasive Free-Breathing Gating-Free Extracellular Cellular Volume Quantification for Repetitive Myocardial
Devin Raine Everaldo Cortes1,2,3, Thomas Becker-Szurszewski1,3, Sean Hartwick1,3
1Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15224, USA.
Biomolecules
|December 30, 2025
Summary
This study introduces a fast, minimally invasive cardiac MRI protocol for measuring myocardial fibrosis in rodents. The new method enables longitudinal tracking of cardiovascular disease progression and response to interventions.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Imaging
- Biomedical Engineering
- Medical Physics
Background:
- Interstitial myocardial fibrosis is a key feature in cardiovascular diseases.
- Cardiac MRI (CMR) with T1 mapping quantifies extracellular volume (ECV) expansion due to fibrosis.
- Rodent ECV measurements are difficult due to long scan times and invasive procedures.
Purpose of the Study:
- Develop a fast, free-breathing, gating-free ECV protocol for rodents.
- Enable longitudinal, repetitive ECV evaluations in rodent models.
- Utilize minimally invasive subcutaneous gadolinium administration.
Main Methods:
- Employed the IntraGate sequence for free-breathing, gating-free cardiac imaging.
- Implemented minimally invasive subcutaneous gadolinium administration.
- Used fast T1 mapping with varied flip angle (VFA) and triple jugular vein blood T1 normalization.
Main Results:
- Successfully established a fast, minimally invasive ECV quantification protocol for rodents.
- Achieved rapid cardiac (~2.5 min) and jugular vein (49 s) T1 quantification without motion artifacts.
- Demonstrated high reproducibility of left-ventricular myocardial ECV quantification, validated in an ischemia-reperfusion injury model.
Conclusions:
- Developed a simple, fast, minimally invasive, and robust CMR protocol for longitudinal ECV quantification in rodents.
- This protocol facilitates monitoring of cardiovascular disease progression and intervention response.
- Enables precise tracking of disease regression during treatment evaluations.
