title: Quantitative assessment of myocardial fibrosis in an age-related rat model by ex vivo late gadolinium enhancement magnetic resonance imaging with histopathological correlation.
abstract: Late gadolinium enhanced (LGE) cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging can detect the presence of myocardial infarction from ischemic cardiomyopathies (ICM). However, it is more challenging to detect diffuse myocardial fibrosis from non-ischemic cardiomyopathy (NICM) with this technique due to more subtle and heterogeneous enhancement of the myocardium. This study investigates whether high-resolution LGE CMR can detect age-related myocardial fibrosis using quantitative texture analysis with histological validation. LGE CMR of twenty-four rat hearts (twelve 6-week-old and twelve 2-year-old) was performed using a 7T MRI scanner. Picrosirius red was used as the histopathology reference for collagen staining. Fibrosis in the myocardium was quantified with standard deviation (SD) threshold methods from the LGE CMR images and 3D contrast texture maps that were computed from gray level co-occurrence matrix of the CMR images. There was a significant increase of collagen fibers in the aged compared to the young rat histology slices (2.60±0.27 %LV vs. 1.24±0.29 %LV, p<0.01). Both LGE CMR and texture images showed a significant increase of myocardial fibrosis in the elderly compared to the young rats. Fibrosis in the LGE CMR images correlated strongly with histology with the 3 SD threshold (r=0.84, y=0.99x+0.00). Similarly, fibrosis in the contrast texture maps correlated with the histology using the 4 SD threshold (r=0.89, y=1.01x+0.00). High resolution ex-vivo LGE CMR can detect the presence of diffuse fibrosis that naturally developed in elderly rat hearts. Our results suggest that texture analysis may improve the assessment of myocardial fibrosis in LGE CMR images.
authors: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA; Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal, Montreal, Canada.
authors: Pascale
authors: P
authors: Beliveau
authors: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal, Montreal, Canada.
authors: Farida
authors: F
authors: Cheriet
authors: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
authors: Stasia A
authors: SA
authors: Anderson
authors: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
authors: Joni L
authors: JL
authors: Taylor
authors: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
authors: Andrew E
authors: AE
authors: Arai
authors: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. Electronic address: lyhsu@mail.nih.gov.
authors: Li-Yueh
authors: LY
authors: Hsu
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000473:pathology*; D000818:Animals; D003287:Contrast Media / Q000494:pharmacology; D005355:Fibrosis; D005682:Gadolinium / Q000494:pharmacology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology*; D011859:Radiography; D051381:Rats; D011916:Rats, Inbred F344
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media; D005682:Gadolinium
keywords: Aging; Computer quantification; Diffuse myocardial fibrosis; Gadolinium; Magnetic resonance imaging; Texture analysis