Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Feature Tracking for Detection of Acute Cardiac Allograft Rejection after Heart Transplantation

Acute cardiac allograft rejection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality after heart transplantation. Reliable non-invasive diagnostic techniques for acute cardiac allograft rejection (ACAR) are unavailable. Cardiac magnetic resonance feature tracking can detect global functional changes in the longitudinal, radial, and circumferential directions during the early stages of graft rejection. We found that cardiac magnetic resonance feature tracking (CMR-FT)-derived global longitudinal strain (GLS), global circumferential strain (GCS), and global radial strain (GRS) are safe, noninvasive, and gadolinium contrast-free parameters for ACAR diagnosis. CMR-FT may provide a method that can reduce the dependency on invasive EMBs after heart transplantation.