Assessment of myocardial perfusion reserve with blood oxygen level-dependent cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract

We hypothesize that new Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) Cardiovascular MRI sequences have the image quality and spatial resolution to quantitatively asses myocardial perfusion. In a canine model, flow, coronary sinus saturation and BOLD signal intensity (SI) changes were correlated during graded adenosine infusion. In healthy volunteers, flow and BOLD SI were acquired before and during adenosine infusion. In dogs, adenosine-induced blood flow changes agreed strongly with coronary venous saturation changes (r2=0.94, p<0.001) and coronary venous saturation showed a strong linear correlation with BOLD-SI changes (r2=0.80, p<0.001). In volunteers, adenosine infusion resulted in a significant myocardial perfusion increase (416±69%, p<0.001).