Myocardial tissue characterization in Chagas’ heart disease by cardiovascular magnetic resonance

Background: Chagas’ heart disease is an important public health problem in South America. Several aspects of the pathogenesis are not fully understood, especially in its subclinical phases. On pathology Chagas’ heart disease is characterized by chronic myocardial inflammation and extensive myocardial fibrosis. The latter has also been demonstrated by late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) by cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR). In three clinical phases of this disease, we sought to investigate the presence of LGE, myocardial increase in signal intensity in T2-weighted images (T2W) and in T1-weighted myocardial early gadolinium enhancement (MEGE), previously described CMR surrogates for myocardial fibrosis, myocardial edema and hyperemia, respectively. Methods: Fifty-four patients were analyzed. Sixteen patients with the indeterminate phase (IND), seventeen patients with the cardiac phase with no left ventricular systolic dysfunction (CPND), and twenty-one patients with the cardiac phase with left ventricular systolic dysfunction (CPD). All patients underwent 1.5 T CMR scan including LGE, T2W and MEGE image sequences to evaluate myocardial abnormalities. Results: Late gadolinium enhancement was present in 72.2 % of all patients, in 12.5 % of IND, 94.1 % of the CPND and 100 % of the CPD patients (p 
Source: Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance - Category: Radiology Authors: Source Type: research