Osama M. Abdullah1, James W. Yockman2, CATHERINE M. Straub3, N Hu3, A Albinil4, S W. Kim4, David A. Bull3, Edward W. Hsu1
1Department of Bioengineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA; 2Department of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA; 3Department of Surgery, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA; 4Yonsei University, Seoul
Coronary heart disease is the main cause of ventricular systolic dysfunction and subsequent heart failure. Evaluation of the efficacy of therapeutic interventions for restoring cardiac function necessitates noninvasive techniques to characterize the cellular remodeling. The goal of the current study is to assess the utility of diffusion tensor imaging for evaluating the cellular remodeling, hence the treatment efficacy, in the post-infarct regenerating myocardium. Results show that while myocardial infarct caused a reduction of the water diffusion anisotropy, gene therapy resulted in partial but significant recovery of the diffusion anisotropy, which likely reflect cellular remodeling of the regenerating myocardium.
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