A French team introduced a new high-resolution free-breathing late gadolinium enhancement (HR-LGE) technique for imaging coronary injury without coronary obstructions in Covid-19 patients. The technique both shortens acquisition time and doesn’t require frequent breath holds, according to a study in the European Journal of Radiology.

“Undersampled free-breathing isotropic HR-LGE can detect additional areas of late enhancement as compared to conventional breath-held LR-LGE. In patients with history of COVID-19 infection associated with troponin rise, the method allows for detailed characterization of myocardial injuries in acceptable scan times and without the need for repeated breath holds,” concluded lead authors Aurelien Bustin, Ph.D. and Dr. Soumaya Sridi of the University of Bordeaux. According to the authors, breath holds are a significant difficulty for Covid-19 patients, reports Morton.

According to Morton, “In cardiac MRI, late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) is a standard tool widely used for diagnosing various myocardial diseases, primarily by detecting injured areas in the heart muscle. LGE can diagnose heart attacks, for instance.”

Sources:

Aurélien Bustin, Soumaya Sridi, Pierre Gravinay, Benoit Legghe, Philippe Gosse, Alexandre Ouattara, Hadrien Rozé, Pierre Coste, Edouard Gerbaud, Arnaud Desclaux, Alexandre Boyer, Renaud Prevel, Didier Gruson, Fabrice Bonnet, Nahema Issa, Michel Montaudon et al. High-resolution Free-breathing late gadolinium enhancement Cardiovascular magnetic resonance to diagnose myocardial injuries following COVID-19 infection.: European Journal of Radiology November 2021. Published online September 18, 2021. Accessed October 4, 2021, at https://www.ejradiology.com/article/S0720-048X(21)00441-1/fulltext

Morton, Will. New MRI method detects heart injuries in COVID-19 patients. AuntMinnie. com September 23, 2021. Accessed October 4, 2021, at https://www.auntminnie.com/index.aspx?sec=sup&sub=mri&pag=dis&ItemID=133565