Abstract #2431

Waveguide Magnetic Resonance Elastography of the Heart

Anthony J. Romano¹, Ria Mazumder², Seongjin Choi³, Bradley Dean Clymer⁴, Richard White⁵, Arunark Kolipaka⁵

¹Physical Acoustics, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, United States; ²Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States; ³Radiology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States; ⁴Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States; ⁵Radiology and Internal Medicine, Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH, United States

Previously, we implemented a method called Waveguide Elastography in the analysis of the orthotropic elastic parameters of the corticospinal tracts (CSTs) in the brains of five healthy volunteers. Here, we extend this method in the analysis of an ex-vivo, porcine heart. We used our method to evaluate the anisotropic shear coefficients C₄₄ and C₅₅ within the three layers of myocardial fibers (i.e. the epicardial, myocardial, and endocardial). We found that there was significant variation within the shear coefficients indicating that the heart is, at a minimum, orthotropic, with stiffness values ranging from 40-60 kPa.