Cardiovascular Research
Cardiovascular magnetic resonance, over the last decade or so, has assumed a key role in the diagnosis, monitoring and prognostic evaluation of heart disease.
The Centre’s remit
The wealth of possible new information is tempered by the challenges posed by cardiac and respiratory motion and practical and timely data acquisition.
The Centre’s remit to develop new magnetic resonance techniques in collaboration with clinical researchers and commercial partners has led to the development of specialist expertise in the measurement of myocardial energetics with 31-phosphate magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
Functional assessment with cardiac tagging techniques and more recently four dimensional flow imaging have also created an exciting opportunity to gain novel insights into cardiovascular pathophysiology.
MRI provides a unique window into cardiac and cardiovascular function. Cardiac methods developed during the last 16 years include:
- Detailed assessment of 3D cardiac morphology, systolic and diastolic function
- Quantification of myocardial scarring and microvascular obstruction
- Tagging methods to assess alterations in circumferential and longitudinal wall motion
- Cardiac relaxometry (T1, T2 relaxation time measurement) to assess extracellular volume and oedema
- 4D flow methods to examine vortex development and atrial flow
For further information about cardiac methods and to discuss ideas for cardiovascular research projects, please contact Dr Kieren Hollingsworth.
The methods
The methods have been applied collaboratively in a diverse range of academic studies and clinical trials:
- the effect of levothyroxine on LV function in subclinical hypothyroidism (with Dr Salman Razvi, JAMA 2020)
- atrial 4D flow rotation and the role of pulmonary vein flows in healthy volunteers and subjects with patent foramen ovale (with Dr Louise Coats and Dr Lian Gan, Physiological Measurement 2020 and 2021, PLOS One 2017)
- the metabolic effects of bezafibrate in mitochondrial diseases (with Prof Patick Chinnery, EMBO Mol Med 2020)
- the relationship between non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cardiac function and autonomic function (with Profs Quentin Anstee and Mike Trenell, J Hepatol 2019 and J Hepatol 2013)
- the association between cardiac high-energy metabolism and cardiac power in healthy women (with Dr Djordje Jakovjlevic, Heart 2018)
- measuring the effect of high-intensity intermittent exercise regimes on cardiac structure and function in type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (with Dr Djordje Jakovklevic, Prof Mike Trenell, Diabetologia 2016 and Clin Sci 2015).
- normal age-related changes in left ventricular function as measured by cardiac energetics, cardiac wall motion and morphology, examining the role of afterload, subendocardial dysfunction and hypertension (with Dr Guy MacGowan, Int J Cardiol 2016)
- concentric hypertrophic remodelling and subendocardial dysfunction in mitochondrial DNA point mutation carriers (with Profs Grainne Gorman and Mike Trenell, Int J. Cardiol. 2013, EHJ Cardiovasc Imaging 2013, Neuromusc. Disord. 2012)
- the relationship between subepicardial dysfunction and global left ventricular systolic impairement in patients with limb girdle muscular dystrophy 2I (with Prof Volker Straub, Eur J Heart Failure, 2013)
- early Valve Replacement guided by Biomarkers of Left Ventricular Decompensation in Asymptomatic Patients with Advanced Aortic Stenosis (EvoLVed). Project Leader: Dr Vijay Kunadian