Pitfalls of Using T2Weighted Imaging for Visualizing Myocardial Edema Using CMR

Ramkumar Krishnamurthy¹, Amol Pednekar², Benjamin Cheong³, Claudio Arena³, Raja Muthupillai³

In this animal study, we study the effect of different T2 weighting on determination of the area at risk (AAR) in cardiac black-blood T2 weighted images. After LAD occlusion in five pigs, black blood images of short axis at different T2 weightings were obtained and AAR were determined as regions with signal intensity greater than mean + 2,3 and 4 SD of remote myocardium. Significant differences in AAR were observed with different quantifying metrics as well as T2 weighting. A significant overlap of absolute T2 values were also observed.