title: Myocardial perfusion magnetic resonance imaging for diagnosing coronary arterial stenosis.
abstract: It has been reported that myocardial perfusion MRI is a useful method for evaluating the severity of myocardial ischemia. We evaluated whether the severity of coronary arterial stenosis could be assessed by the signal-intensity time curve (SITC) obtained by myocardial perfusion MRI. The subjects consisted of 10 patients who showed no abnormalities on coronary angiographies (CAG) (A group), 12 with single-vessel disease of 75-90% stenosis on CAG (B group), and 15 with single-vessel disease of 90% or more stenosis (C group). After infusion of dipyridamole for 4 minutes, gadolinium-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid was administered intravenously, followed by serial acquisition of T1-weighted left ventricular short-axis MR images. These images were evaluated after dividing them into the following 3 myocardial segments: anterior wall, lateral wall, and inferior wall. Mean values of the slope of SITC ( 1.4 +/- 0.2 vs 1.1 +/- 0.2. P < 0.01), and increases to the peak corrected SI (deltaSI) (47.5 +/- 1.9 % vs 33.7 +/- 2.4%, P < 0.01) in normal myocardial segments were significantly greater than in ischemic segments in the C group, while there was no significant distinction between normal and ischemic segments in the B group. The mean values of time to the peak SI were not significantly different between normal and ischemic regions in the B and C groups. The results suggest that myocardial segments exhibiting 30% decreases in both the slope and deltaSI of SITC can be diagnosed as having 90% or more severe coronary stenosis. The present study shows that visual and SITC evaluations of myocardial perfusion MR images may be useful for clinically evaluating the severity of coronary stenosis.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Kagawa Prefectural Shirotori Hospital, Matsubara, Okawa-gun 769-2788, Japan.
authors.forename: Manabu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kinoshita
authors.forename: Masahiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nomura
authors.forename: Masafumi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Harada
authors.forename: Shigenobu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bando
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakaya
authors.forename: Susumu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ito
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D023921:Coronary Stenosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted