Purpose: To determine whether healed myocardial infarction alters dynamic contrast-enhancement (DCE) curve shapes as well as late gadolinium-enhancement (LGE).
Materials and methods: Twenty patients with chronic myocardial infarction underwent MR imaging at 1.5 T with blood and myocardial T1 measurements before and after contrast administration for forty minutes. Viable and infarcted myocardial partition coefficients were calculated using multipoint slope methods for ten different DCE sampling intervals and windows. Partition coefficients and coefficients of determination were compared with paired statistical tests to assess the linearity of DCE curve shapes over the 40 min time period.
Results: Calculated partition coefficients did not vary significantly between methods (p=0.325) for viable myocardium but did differ for infarcted myocardium (p<0.001), indicating a difference in infarcted DCE. There was a significant difference between viable and infarcted myocardial partition coefficients estimates for all methods with the exception of methods that included measurements during the first 10 min after contrast agent administration.
Conclusion: Myocardial partition coefficients calculated from a slope calculation vary in healed myocardial infarction based on the selection of samples due to non-linear DCE curve shapes. Partition coefficient calculations are insensitive to data sampling effects in viable myocardium due to linear DCE curve shapes.
Keywords: Cardiovascular; Gadolinium contrast; Heart; Magnetic resonance imaging; Myocardial infarction; Partition coefficient.
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