Signal increase for dipiridamol induced stress on cardiac magnetic resonance perfusion in minipig

Abstract

Background We compare eight reported methods for the analysis of cardiac perfusion flow from DCE data with respect to their potential in measuring a signal increase in the heart tissue by application of medication induced stress. Our work will strongly concern cardiologists, radiologists and clinical scientists performing myocardial perfusion imaging at high field (3 T). Methods A healthy minipig, measured 5 times using first pass DCE imaging. We sampled the arterial input function (AIF) and the tissue response function (TRF), from the mid-ventricular tissue region from anterior to inferior in the short axis view of the heart, using incoherent imaging (Steady State Incoherent, SSI, or FLASH), and coherent imaging (Steady State Coherent, SSC, or BALANCED) [1] twice, without and with dipiridamole induced stress. We compared the results from analysis methods taken from the literature, namely the Fermi function (1, ‘Fermi’), Finite Differences (2, ‘FD’), 2 Compartment Tofts (3, ‘2CTM’), Exchange (4, ‘2CXM’), Uptake (5,’2CUM’), Tofts (6,’1CTM’), Patlak (7,’Patlak’), and the Maximum Slope (8, ‘upslope’ )m ethod [2].