Abstract
Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality through its effects on target organs including the heart, the blood vessels and the brain. Early detection of cardiac and cerebral outcome, before irreversible damage has occurred, can contribute to further decline in hypertension-related death. Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV), defined as the propagation speed of the systolic pressure or flow wave through the aorta, is a surrogate marker for aortic stiffness. PWV has been shown to be an independent predictor of stroke and cardiac mortality in hypertensive patients. Gold standard for PWV-assessment comes from intravascular pressure measurement but this requires an invasive procedure, not suitable for screening. The current method-of-choice is non-invasive echo Doppler. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides an alternative, with the advantage over echo Doppler that image acquisition does not have a limited acoustic window and the aorta can be visualized along its full length, allowing for more accurate assessment of the path lengths of pulse waves. Also, MRI is the gold standard for assessment of cardiac left ventricular (LV) function and mass and cerebral lacunar infarcts and white matter hyperintensities (WMHs). An integrated MRI-approach for the assessment of aortic stiffness, cardiac function and brain examination is performed in hypertensive patients. Our hypothesis is that early end-organ damage (i.e. increased aortic stiffness, decreased cardiac function and cerebral lacunar infarcts and WMHs) are interrelated in hypertensive patients.
Highlights
Prophylactic implantation of a cardioverter/ defibrillator (ICD) has been shown to reduce mortality in patients with chronic myocardial infarction (CMI) and an increased risk for life threatening ventricular arrhythmia (VA)
The purpose of this study was to demonstrate a novel approach to imaging the vessel wall and vessel wall calcification using susceptibility weighted imaging [2] (SWI) with no need to suppress the signal from the blood
Optimizing the imaging parameters: The SWI sequence parameters were optimized to allow for the best visualization of the femoral artery lumen in the magnitude images and the arterial wall in the phase images
Summary
Prophylactic implantation of a cardioverter/ defibrillator (ICD) has been shown to reduce mortality in patients with chronic myocardial infarction (CMI) and an increased risk for life threatening ventricular arrhythmia (VA). Methods: In 11 patients (age 0.7 – 27 years) with complex congenital heart disease, surgical questions were directed towards palliative or corrective surgery but consensus about the optimum treatment strategy was not reached using standard diagnostic tools including echocardiography, catheterization and conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In these patients, three-dimensional printed cast and virtual computer models of the heart were made on the basis of high-resolution whole-heart and/or cineMRI.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
