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Ferumoxytol-Enhanced Myocardial T1 Tracking Using a Hybrid 2D/3D Steady-State MRI Sequence Captures Cyclic

Hazar Benan Unal1,2,3, Shahriar Zeynali1,2,3, Abdul Ahmed4,5

  • 1Laboratory for Translational Imaging of Microcirculation, Purdue University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.

NMR in Biomedicine
|May 19, 2026
PubMed

Insights

A new ferumoxytol-enhanced (FE) MRI technique called T1 tracking can measure cyclic changes in intramyocardial blood volume (iMBV) dynamics. This method shows potential for detecting coronary artery disease (CAD) without vasodilator stress.

Area of Science:

  • Cardiovascular Imaging
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
  • Cardiac Physiology

Background:

  • Cyclic changes in intramyocardial blood volume (iMBV) are crucial for assessing coronary microcirculation and diagnosing coronary artery disease (CAD).
  • Existing methods often require vasodilator stress, and a non-invasive MRI technique for dynamic iMBV assessment is lacking.
  • Ferumoxytol-enhanced (FE) MRI offers potential for improved contrast and detection of blood volume changes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To demonstrate the feasibility of using FE MRI with a novel myocardial T1 tracking technique to detect systolic-to-diastolic iMBV dynamics.
  • To evaluate this technique on clinical MRI scanners without the need for pharmacological stress.
  • To compare the T1 tracking method with the standard MOLLI sequence for iMBV assessment.

Main Methods:

  • Development of a continuous steady-state MRI sequence with slice/slab-selective excitation for myocardial T1 tracking.
  • Acquisition of high-resolution T1-weighted images to dynamically track myocardial signal changes related to blood volume.
  • Ferumoxytol-enhanced (FE) MRI studies in swine (n=10) comparing T1 tracking with MOLLI for calculating iMBV at end-systole (ES) and end-diastole (ED).

Main Results:

  • The T1 tracking method revealed a significant iMBV difference between ES and ED (p < 10^-3), showing a physiological decrease from diastole to systole.
  • MOLLI sequence showed no significant iMBV difference between ES and ED (p = 0.4) and contradictory results in 30% of studies.
  • The T1 tracking method demonstrated a mean iMBV decrease of 19.1% from ED to ES, consistent with established nuclear imaging findings.

Conclusions:

  • The novel FE myocardial T1 tracking technique successfully captures cyclic iMBV changes, consistently showing the expected drop from diastole to systole.
  • This technique provides a non-invasive MRI method for assessing iMBV dynamics without pharmacological stress.
  • The findings suggest that FE myocardial T1 tracking has the potential to serve as a valuable imaging marker for detecting CAD.

Keywords:
blood volumecardiac cyclecardiac magnetic resonancecoronary artery diseaseferumoxytolischemic heart diseasemyocardial MRIspoiled gradient echo

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