title: Postinfarction ventricular tachycardia substrate characterization: a comparison between late enhancement magnetic resonance imaging and voltage mapping using an MR-guided electrophysiology system.
abstract: Catheter ablation of ventricular tachycardia (VT) is preceded by characterization of the myocardial substrate via electroanatomical voltage mapping (EAVM). The purpose of this study was to characterize the relationship between chronic myocardial fibrotic scar detected by multicontrast late enhancement (MCLE) MRI and by EAVM obtained using an MR-guided electrophysiology system, with a final aim to better understand how these measures may improve identification of potentially arrhythmogenic substrates. Real-time MR-guided EAVM was performed in six chronically infarcted animals in a 1.5T MR system. The MCLE images were analyzed to identify the location and extent of the fibrotic infarct. Voltage maps of the left ventricle (LV) were created with an average of 231 ± 35 points per LV. Correlation analysis was conducted between bipolar voltage and three MR parameters (infarct transmurality, tissue categorization into healthy and scar classes, and normalized relaxation rate R1). In general, tissue regions classified as scar by normalized R1 values were well correlated with locations with low bipolar voltage values. Moreover, our results demonstrate that MRI information (transmurality, tissue classification, and relaxation rate) can accurately predict areas of myocardial fibrosis identified with bipolar voltage mapping, as demonstrated by ROC analysis. MCLE can help overcome limitations of bipolar voltage mapping including long durations and lower spatial discrimination and may help identify the sites within scars, which are commonly believed to trigger arrhythmic events in postinfarction patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M4N 3M5, Canada. soduneye@sri.utoronto.ca
authors.forename: Samuel O
authors.initials: SO
authors.lastname: Oduneye
authors.forename: Mihaela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pop
authors.forename: Labonny
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Biswas
authors.forename: Sudip
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ghate
authors.forename: Roey
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Flor
authors.forename: Venkat
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ramanan
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Barry
authors.forename: Haydar
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Celik
authors.forename: Eugene
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Crystal
authors.forename: Graham A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Wright
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D018780:Body Surface Potential Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D017115:Catheter Ablation; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D017143:Fuzzy Logic; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D012372:ROC Curve; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D025321:Surgery, Computer-Assisted; D013552:Swine; D017180:Tachycardia, Ventricular / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000601:surgery