MOLLI T1-Mapping for Assessment of Acute Myocardial Infarction and Tako-Tsubo Cardiomyopathy

Donnie Cameron¹, David Higgins², Baljit Jagpal¹, Margaret Bruce¹, Nishat Siddiqi¹, Christian Stehning³, Michael Frenneaux¹, Thomas Redpath¹, Dana Dawson¹

Modified Look-Locker Inversion recovery (MOLLI) is a useful tool for measuring T₁ values in the myocardium. We applied MOLLI to acute myocardial infarction and acute tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy in order to assess its ability to distinguish normal myocardium from abnormal myocardium. Comparing two patient groups with healthy volunteers, MOLLI showed significant differences in T₁ values of infarcted segments as compared to normal segments(p<0.005). Tako-tsubo dyskinetic segments demonstrated significantly higher T₁ values than both normal and infarcted myocardium (p<<0.0001 versus normal). These results show that MOLLI sensitively delineates abnormal myocardium and provides superior evaluation compared to T₂-weighted assessment.