Cardiac exercise imaging using a 3-tesla magnetic resonance-conditional pedal ergometer: Preliminary results in healthy volunteers and patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease

Figures

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  Figure 1. Representative cardiac magnetic resonanse images of a 48-year-old healthy volunteer. Left column: Real-time cine of basal short-axis slice at rest end-diastolic (A) and end-systolic (a). Second column: Real-time cine post-exercise end-diastolic (B) and end-systolic (b). Third column: high-resolution cine at rest end-diastolic (C) and end-systolic (c). Right column: late gadolinium enhancement short-axis slice (D) and 4-chamber view (d). Heart rate at rest 62 bpm, heart rate post-exercise 111 bpm.

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  Figure 2. Graphs show variation of heart rate at rest and immediately post-exercise (A), ejection fraction (B), end-diastolic volume index (C), end-systolic volume index (D), cardiac output (E), cardiac index (F), and as assessed by free-breathing real-time cine imaging. Error bars = mean ± standard deviation; ***p < 0.0001; NS — non-significant.

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  Figure 3. Representative cardiac magnetic resonance imaging images of a 65-year-old female patient with suspected coronary artery disease. Upper row: High-resolution cine post-exercise end-diastolic on a basal short axis slice (A), midventricular short-axis slice (B), and apical short-axis slice (C). Lower row (a–c): High-resolution cine post-exercise end-systolic frames show hypokinetic wall motion abnormality in the anteroseptal segments of midventricular (b) and apical slice of the left ventricle (c), as illustrated by reduced end-diastolic to end-systolic wall thickening in bullseye diagram (D). Percutaneous coronary angiography on the following day depicted a 90% proximal left anterior descending artery — first diagonal artery bifurcation stenosis (E, arrowhead), which was intervened by stent implantation. Heart rate at rest imaging 59 bpm, heart rate at post-exercise imaging 125 bpm.