Chia-Ying Liu1, Alban Redheuil1, Ronald Ouwerkerk1, Joao Lima1, David Bluemke2
1Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD, USA; 2Radiology and Imaging Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
The concept of fat contained within the myocardium, has recently received attention because of its potential role in diabetic myocardial disease, obesity, and HIV infected individuals. Measurements of myocardial triglycerides in humans have been accessed using proton MR spectroscopy (1H MRS). We studied whether the dual-echo Dixon MRI could quantify the fatty content of the myocardium on normal volunteers. The bias including T1, T2*, and noise that confound the calculation of the fat fraction were carefully corrected. The fraction of fat was also quantified directly with 1H MRS as an independent method.