Abstract #0613

Quantitative Myocardial T2 Measurement For Systemic Sarcoidosis with Cardiac Involvement: Initial Results

Yuesong Yang¹, Kim A. Connelly², Meyer Balter³, John J. Graham², Rhonda Walcarius¹, Bradley Strauss¹, Alexander J. Dick⁴, Graham A. Wright¹

¹Imaging Research & Cardiology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada; ²Cardiology, St.Michael's Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada; ³Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada; ⁴Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Sarcoidosis is a systemic disease with a predilection for pulmonary involvement. Cardiac involvement is a major risk factor for sudden death in these patients due to damage in the cardiac conductance system and associated ventricular arrhythmias. LGE-MRI provides improved sensitivity in the detection of cardiac involvement in systemic sarcoidosis. However, the LGE foci are not specific for cardiac sarcoidosis. We hypothesize that quantitative T2 measurements with MRI may yield new insights for the assessment of cardiac lesions in systemic sarcoidosis. In this study, a decreased T2 measurement from cardiac sarcoid lesions was observed, which may reflect the true pathological features of certain sarcoid lesions with Schaumann bodies of calcified proteins.