Xavier Helluy1, Martina Sauter2,
Yu-Xiang Ye3, Roland Jahns3, Ali Yilmaz4,
Karin Klingel2, Karl-Heinz Hiller1, Peter M. Jakob1
1Magnetic Resonance Bavaria,
Wuerzburg, Germany; 2Department of Molecular Pathology, University
of Tuebingen, Germany; 3Department of Internal Medicine I,
University Hospital of Wuerzburg, Germany; 4Division of
Cardiology, Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus, Stuttgart, Germany
Myocarditis which is the major cause of heart failure and sudden death in young adults is most often induced by viruses, importantly by coxsackieviruses. We report a novel application of T2* weighted MRI at 7T on the murine model of coxsackievirus B3 induced chronic myocarditis. T2* weigthed images show a negative contrast correlating with fibrosis distribution within the myocardium. The observed T2* contrast might be due to local field inhomogeneities induced by fibrotic tissue. Besides the value of characterizing the disease model in vivo, this finding could be a novel technique for diagnosing chronic myocarditis in humans or some other fibrosis-related diseases.