Results
- Showing results for:
- Reset all filters
Search results
-
Journal articleTonko JB, Kappadan V, El-Medany A, et al., 2026,
Mechanistic interpretations of sustained ventricular fibrillation: The role of mapping methodology, model and time.
, Heart Int, Vol: 20, Pages: 5-19Ventricular fibrillation (VF) is a malignant tachyarrhythmia underlying cardiac arrest, yet the mechanisms maintaining VF remain incompletely understood. Ethical constraints and technical limitations have largely precluded systematic investigation of sustained VF in humans, resulting in a body of evidence derived predominantly from animal models and ex vivo human preparations, often yielding apparently conflicting mechanistic interpretations. This article summarizes the experimental studies and conceptual frameworks that underpin the contemporary understanding of VF maintenance. We discuss evidence derived from frequency- and phase-based mapping approaches in short- and long-duration VF studies across species, highlighting how methodological constraints, animal models, spatial scale and VF duration critically influence mechanistic interpretation. Despite the heterogeneity across studies, overall, the data indicate that VF is not inherently chaotic but exhibits transient spatiotemporal organization that evolves dynamically over time. The underlying drivers sustaining VF throughout its progression are not uniform: multiple at times co-existing mechanisms, including re-entrant activity, self-perpetuating wavelets and rapid focal activation, have been implicated. The predominance and temporal evolution of these mechanisms are shaped by progressive global ischaemia with metabolic deterioration, pre-existing structural remodelling and the involvement as well as architecture of the Purkinje network. Collectively, these observations support the concept of duration-dependent and likely also substrate-specific electrophysiological phenotypes of VF, while also exposing a paucity of studies that have explicitly and systematically evaluated the effect of pre-existing structural and electrical substrate characteristics to examine their reciprocal interaction with VF dynamics. We conclude by outlining future directions, emphasizing the need for true 3D transmural mapping technolog
-
Conference paperJevsikov J, Stowell CC, Ng T, et al., 2026,
Robustness of Human vs. AI Measurements Under Progressive Image Degradation
, 2nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare-AIiH, Publisher: SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG, Pages: 261-268, ISSN: 0302-9743 -
Book chapterFernandes P, Naidoo P, Ufumaka I, et al., 2026,
Deep Learning for Assessing Rotational Misalignment in Echocardiographic Imaging
, Editors: Rittman, Ni, Cafolla, Publisher: SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG, Pages: 269-282, ISBN: 978-3-032-00627-1 -
Journal articleMcDonald A, Gales M, Rana BS, et al., 2026,
Development and validation of AI-Enhanced auscultation for valvular heart disease screening through a multi-centre study.
, NPJ Cardiovasc Health, Vol: 3Valvular heart disease (VHD) is a growing public health concern, yet over half of cases remain undiagnosed due to late symptom onset, limited public awareness, and low sensitivity of traditional stethoscope-based screening. Current AI-enabled tools rely on murmur detection as a proxy for VHD but lack sensitivity for common subtypes like mitral regurgitation and are limited by small datasets. This study presents a novel neural network that directly predicts clinically significant VHD from stethoscope recordings, trained using echocardiographic targets rather than heart murmur labels. A diverse dataset of 1767 patients across UK primary care and hospital settings was developed, combining stethoscope recordings with echocardiographic labels. The trained recurrent neural network achieved an AUROC of 0.83, outperforming general practitioners and demonstrating exceptional sensitivity for severe aortic stenosis (98%) and severe mitral regurgitation (94%). This algorithm shows promise as a scalable, low-cost screening tool, enabling earlier diagnosis and timely referral for intervention. This research was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (CAIS: NCT04445012 registered on 2020-06-21, DUO-EF: NCT04601415 registered on 2020-10-19).
-
Book chapterNaidoo P, Fernandes P, Ufumaka I, et al., 2026,
Spatiotemporal Contrastive Learning for Echocardiography View Classification
, Editors: Rittman, Ni, Cafolla, Publisher: SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG, Pages: 247-260, ISBN: 978-3-032-00627-1 -
Journal articlePouliopoulos J, Imran M, Anthony C, et al., 2025,
Cardiovascular magnetic resonance feature tracking for rejection surveillance after cardiac transplantation.
, J Cardiovasc Magn Reson, Vol: 28BACKGROUND: Endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) is the standard invasive method for monitoring acute cardiac allograft rejection (ACAR); however, non-invasive alternatives are increasingly proving to be dependable. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to identify and validate dependable cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) strain indices for ACAR detection. METHODS: We analyzed 160 CMR scans, including long- and short-axis cines, as well as T1/T2 maps from 54 transplant recipients. Uniparametric and multiparametric models integrating left ventricular strain metrics and tissue characteristics were developed to classify histological rejection grades (0, 1 R, ≥2 R) and evaluate therapeutic response. RESULTS: Regression analysis using generalized linear mixed-models identified significant differences between rejection groups, with global radial strain (GRS) (z-value = 3.1, p = 0.002) and global circumferential strain (GCS) (z-value = 2.5 p<0.008) outperforming global longitudinal strain (GLS) in discriminating ≥2 R from 1 R rejection. Diagnostic performance for detecting ≥2 R rejection was excellent, particularly for GCS (AUC = 0.852, negative predictive value [NPV] = 98.3%) and GRS (AUC = 0.826, NPV = 95.8% (95.8/100)), with enhanced accuracy in the anterolateral mid-basal segments (AUC>0.886, NPV>97.9%). Strain metrics effectively monitored recovery post-therapy for ≥2 R rejection, showing significant improvements (GRS Δ24.5±7.1%, GCS Δ15.9±4.6%, GLS Δ27.4±11.8%, all p<0.02). Furthermore, as strained-based detection of ≥2 R rejection correlated with increases in edema detected using T1/T2 mapping (all p<0.001), integrating strain with T1/T2 mapping significantly enhanced diagnostic accuracy, with T2+GRS (AUC = 0.931, NPV = 98.2) and T1+T2+GCS (AUC = 0.943, NPV = 97.5) as the most effective models. CONCLUSION: Segmental CMR strain analysis demonstrates excellent diagn
-
Journal articleRajendra S, Salmasi Y, Raj B, et al., 2025,
Perioperative Predictors of Right Ventricular Failure Following Left Ventricular Assist Device Implantation.
, ASAIO JRight ventricular failure (RVF) is an important complication following implantation of a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) in patients with advanced heart failure. This study aims to identify perioperative hemodynamic predictors of RVF following LVAD implantation and develop an internally validated predictive model. Patients who underwent LVAD implantations between March 2013 and March 2023 at a large-volume tertiary center were retrospectively analyzed. The primary outcome was early post-implant RVF, defined by need for right ventricular assist device (RVAD), prolonged inotrope dependence (> 14 days), or death within 14 days while on inotropes. Perioperative hemodynamic variables were analyzed using univariate logistic regression. A prediction model was then developed using stepwise multivariate logistic regression, and internally validated using k-fold cross-validation. Among 210 patients, 73 patients (34.8%) developed early post-implant RVF. Decreased post-implant cardiac index (odds ratio [OR]: 0.0122, p = 0.001), decreased mean arterial pressure (OR: 0.932, p = 0.008), and simultaneously increased cardiac index and pulmonary pulse pressure (OR: 1.13, p = 0.021) independently predicted RVF. Preimplantation IV inotrope therapy was a significant confounder (OR: 3.96, p = 0.021). Our proposed predictive model achieved strong discriminatory power (area under the curve [AUC] of 0.830) and stable cross-validation performance. External validation with multicenter cohorts is warranted to confirm predictive accuracy and clinical applicability.
-
Journal articleLakdawala NK, Hershberger RE, Garcia-Pavia P, et al., 2025,
Danicamtiv, a Selective Agonist of Cardiac Myosin, for Dilated Cardiomyopathy: A Phase 2 Open-Label Trial.
, J Am Coll Cardiol, Vol: 86, Pages: 2598-2612BACKGROUND: Precision therapies for dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) are lacking despite diverse manifestations and clinical trajectories based on underlying etiology. DCM-associated pathogenic variants in cardiac beta-myosin heavy chain (MYH7) and titin (TTN) can impair the function/availability of cardiac myosin. Danicamtiv is a novel investigational small molecule that selectively enhances cardiac myosin function. OBJECTIVES: The study sought to translationally evaluate danicamtiv in the setting of myosin dysfunction, from in vitro assessments to a clinical trial exploring its safety and efficacy in DCM due to MYH7 or TTN variants, or other causes (either positive or negative genetic results). METHODS: The danicamtiv effects on DCM-variant cardiac myosin enzyme activity and skinned left ventricular (LV) fiber force generation were assessed in vitro. A phase 2a, baseline-controlled, open-label trial enrolled individuals with DCM into cohorts by variants (MYH7 or TTN) or other causes. In the week of treatment period (TP)1, participants received oral danicamtiv 25 mg twice daily with dose adjustment in TP2 to 10 or 50 mg twice daily. The primary endpoint was safety/tolerability; secondary endpoints included echocardiography-assessed changes in cardiac structure/function. RESULTS: In vitro, danicamtiv increased the activity of wild-type and DCM myosin, increasing force production in cardiac fibers. Forty-one participants were enrolled in the trial (mean age 49.6 ± 13 years; mean baseline LV ejection fraction 33.4% ± 8.0%). Twelve had MYH7 variants, 14 had TTN variants, and 15 had other cause DCM. Treatment-emergent adverse events were reported in 22 (53.7%) of 41 participants (all mild or moderate; 1 discontinuation); an asymptomatic increase in cardiac troponin was detected in 3 participants in the other causes cohort. After TP2, the MYH7 and TTN cohorts showed improvements from baseline in LV ejection fraction (MYH7: 8.8% [95% CI: 5.03%-12.64%]; TTN: 5.9%
-
Journal articleJohnson R, Fletcher RA, Peters S, et al., 2025,
Titin-related familial dilated cardiomyopathy: factors associated with disease onset.
, Eur Heart J, Vol: 46, Pages: 5240-5257BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Truncating variants in the TTN gene (TTNtv) are the most common genetic cause of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) but also occur as incidental findings in the general population. This study investigated factors associated with the clinical manifestation of TTNtv. METHODS: An international multicentre retrospective observational study was performed in families with TTNtv-related DCM. Shared frailty models were used to estimate associations of variant characteristics with lifetime risk of DCM, and logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (ORs) for individual-level clinical risk factor profiles (cardiac conditions, cardiovascular comorbidities, lifestyle) and DCM. RESULTS: A total of 3158 subjects in 1043 families with TTNtv-related DCM were studied. TTNtv-positive subjects were 21-fold more likely to develop DCM [OR, 21.21; 95% confidence interval (CI), 14.80-30.39]. Disease onset was earlier in males, but was similar for TTNtv of different types and locations. The presence of clinical risk factors was associated with earlier DCM onset (OR, 3.41; 95% CI, 2.06-5.64), with a prior history of atrial fibrillation having a two-fold increased odds of DCM (OR, 2.05; 95% CI, 1.27-3.32). The prevalence of clinical risk factors increased with age; however, the strength of the DCM association was greatest for young-onset (<30 years) disease (OR, 4.75; 95% CI, 2.35-9.60). Administration of beta-adrenergic receptor or renin-angiotensin system-blocking drugs prior to overt DCM was associated with 87% reduced odds of DCM (OR, .13; 95% CI, .08-.23). CONCLUSIONS: Disease onset in TTNtv-associated familial DCM is dependent on individual patient context and is potentially modifiable by risk factor management and prophylactic therapeutic intervention.
-
Journal articleGurnani M, Patlatzoglou K, Barker J, et al., 2025,
Deriving novel atrial fibrillation phenotypes using a tree-based artificial intelligence-enhanced electrocardiography approach
, npj Digital Medicine, Vol: 8, ISSN: 2398-6352Atrial fibrillation (AF) is classically categorised by arrhythmia duration, but these subtypes have limitations in capturing mechanistic and prognostic diversity. A variational autoencoder, trained on >1.1M ECGs, extracted representative features, filtered for an AF cohort of 20,291 unique patients. These features were input into an unsupervised tree-based clustering method to map AF heterogeneity as a tree structure and identify phenogroups. Five phenogroups stratified by future disease risk were identified: (1) higher-risk AF; (2) highest-risk AF with heart failure (HF); (3) average paroxysmal AF; (4) lower-risk paroxysmal AF; and (5) higher-risk paroxysmal AF. The tree trajectory positioned individuals based on shared traits, emphasising explainability. Paroxysmal phenogroups 4 and 5 differed in risk and ventricular structure, with phenogroup 5 exhibiting more adverse features. Mixed AF phenogroup 2 reflected advanced AF with greater HF burden and mortality risk. This AI-ECG framework augments AF subtypes with a risk-based dimension, supporting personalised care.
-
Journal articleSyan J, Joshi M, Beard J, et al., 2025,
Wearable continuous vital sign monitoring study (WARD-AMS) to detect clinical deterioration in postoperative general surgery patients: protocol for a randomized controlled trial
, JMIR Research Protocols, Vol: 14, ISSN: 1929-0748Background:Postoperative complications remain a major challenge in health care systems, with more than 70% of postoperative in-hospital mortality occurring in general wards. Current practice relies on intermittent spot-check monitoring of vital signs guided by track-and-trigger thresholds such as early warning scores. Evidence shows that, up to 4 hours before an adverse event, abnormal vital signs can be detected in up to 60% of patients. Continuous vital sign monitoring in general wards offers the potential to detect clinical deterioration earlier. However, prospective evaluations of continuous monitoring in general wards remain limited.Objective:This study aims to prospectively evaluate the impact of continuous vital sign monitoring in adult postoperative patients in general wards. The primary objective is to determine whether continuous vital sign monitoring reduces the time from device-defined physiological deterioration to the first objective escalation event (acknowledgment or clinical action) by the health care team. Secondary objectives are to evaluate clinical outcomes, operational impact, and both staff and patient experiences.Methods:We conducted a single-center, open-label randomized controlled trial of 200 general surgical patients, receiving continuous vital signs monitoring alongside standard care. Participants were randomized 1:1 to alerting or nonalerting groups, either real-time data and alerts visible or blinded to clinicians, respectively. The primary outcome is the time from the first device-defined physiological deterioration episode to the first objective escalation event (acknowledgment or clinical action). Exploratory outcomes evaluate time to treatment initiation, rapid response team activation, escalation of care, length of stay, mortality, alarm performance, and patient and staff experience.Results:The Ward Alerting and Ambulatory Monitoring Study (WARD-AMS) trial received ethical approval in April 2024; recruitment commenced in October 2
-
Journal articleArdissino M, Nicolaides K, Conti-Ramsden F, et al., 2025,
Polygenic Risk Scores for Preeclampsia Prediction Beyond Gold-Standard Clinical Models in Multiethnic Populations
, JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION, Vol: 14 -
Journal articleTänzer M, Scott AD, Khalique Z, et al., 2025,
Accelerating cDTI with deep learning-based tensor de-noising and breath hold reduction. a step towards improved efficiency and clinical feasibility
, Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, Vol: 27, ISSN: 1097-6647BackgroundCardiac Diffusion Tensor Imaging (cDTI) non-invasively provides unique insights into cardiac microstructure. Current protocols require multiple breath-hold repetitions to achieve adequate signal-to-noise ratio, resulting in lengthy scan times. The aim of this study was to develop a cDTI de-noising method that would enable the reduction of repetitions while preserving image quality.MethodsWe present a novel de-noising framework for cDTI acceleration centred on three fundamental advances: (1) a paradigm shift from image-based to tensor-space de-noising that better preserves structural information, (2) an ensemble of Vision Transformer-based models specifically optimised for tensor processing through adversarial training, and (3) a sophisticated data augmentation strategy that maximises training data utilisation through dynamic repetition selection.ResultsOur approach reduces scan times by a factor of up to 4 while achieving a 20% reduction in cDTI maps errors over existing de-noising methods (Table 1) and preserving anatomical features such as infarct characterisation and transmural cardiomyocyte orientation patterns. Crucially, our proposed method succeeds in clinical cases where other algorithms previously failed.ConclusionsThis demonstrates substantial improvements in cDTI acquisition efficiency, achieving up to 4-fold scan time reduction (3-5 breath-holds) while maintaining diagnostic accuracy across diverse cardiac pathologies.
-
Journal articlePatlatzoglou K, Pastika L, Barker J, et al., 2025,
The cost of explainability in artificial intelligence-enhanced electrocardiogram models
, npj Digital Medicine, Vol: 8, ISSN: 2398-6352Artificial intelligence-enhanced electrocardiogram (AI-ECG) models have shown outstanding performance in diagnostic and prognostic tasks, yet their black-box nature hampers clinical adoption. Meanwhile, a growing demand for explainable AI in medicine underscores the need for transparent, trustworthy decision-making. Moving beyond post-hoc explainability techniques that have shown unreliable results, we focus on explicit representation learning using variational autoencoders (VAE) to capture inherently interpretable ECG features. While VAEs have demonstrated potential for ECG interpretability, the presumed performance-explainability trade-off remains underexplored, with many studies relying on complex, non-linear methods that obscure the morphological information of the features. In this work, we present a novel framework (VAE-SCAN) to model bi-directional, interpretable associations between ECG features and clinical factors. We also investigate how different representations affect ECG decoding performance across models with varying levels of explainability. Our findings demonstrate the cost introduced by intrinsic ECG interpretability, based on which we discuss potential implications and directions.
-
Journal articleRajkumar CA, Foley MJ, Ahmed-Jushuf F, et al., 2025,
The Role of the Collateral Circulation in Stable Angina: An Invasive Placebo-Controlled Study
, CIRCULATION, Vol: 152, Pages: 1541-1551, ISSN: 0009-7322 -
Journal articleAkbari T, Mach L, Hammersley DJ, et al., 2025,
Visually assessed ischaemia on cardiac magnetic resonance, but not quantitative perfusion metrics, predicts symptomatic improvement in coronary artery bypass
, Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, Vol: 27, ISSN: 1097-6647BackgroundSerial perfusion cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) in symptomatic patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) may provide mechanistic insight into dynamic abnormalities of the myocardium.ObjectivesTo assess how changes in cardiac reperfusion and remodelling associate with symptom improvement in patients undergoing CABGMethodsPatients awaiting elective CABG completed serial quality of life questionnaires and detailed CMR at baseline and at 6-12 months post CABG as per protocol. Automated fully quantitative stress and rest myocardial blood flow was calculated, alongside assessment of the visual ischaemic burden. Findings were correlated with changes in symptomatology.ResultsOf 40 patients who underwent serial evaluation with CMR (mean age 62.1±9.3, median LVEF 68% [IQR: 62-73%]), there was improvement in the median visual ischaemic burden (42% [IQR: 27-51] vs 18% [IQR: 11-21], P<0.001), mean global stress myocardial blood flow (1.34±0.5 ml/min/g vs 1.59±0.5 ml/min/g, P=0.002) and median global myocardial perfusion reserve (1.85±0.6 vs 2.4±0.9, P<0.001) following CABG. Greater improvement in the SAQ-7 summary score was associated with a greater decrease in the visual ischaemic burden following CABG (ρ=-0.38, P=0.02). Quantitative MBF metrics did not associate with baseline or change in SAQ-7 summary score.ConclusionSerial perfusion CMR identifies dynamic changes in markers of myocardial perfusion in patients following CABG. Greater reduction of visually assessed ischaemia associated with improvement in SAQ-7 score. Quantitative perfusion indices were not associated with symptom improvement in this study. The results also suggest residual inducible ischaemia post CABG requiring further studies to elucidate its clinical relevance.
-
Journal articleMcGurk K, Curran L, Sau A, et al., 2025,
Circulating cardiovascular proteomic associations with genetics and disease
, Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine, Vol: 18, ISSN: 2574-8300BackgroundThe analysis of the circulating proteome can identify translational modifiers and biomarkers of disease expressivity and severity at a given time point. Here we explore the relationships between protein measures implicated in cardiovascular disease and whether they mediate causal relationships between cardiovascular risk factors and disease development.MethodsTo understand the relationships between circulating biomarkers and genetic variants, medications, anthropometric traits, lifestyle factors, imaging-derived measures, and diagnoses of cardiovascular disease, we analysed measures of nine plasma proteins with a priori roles in genetic and structural cardiovascular disease or treatment pathways (ACE2, ACTA2, ACTN4, BAG3, BNP, CDKN1A, NOTCH1, NT-proBNP, and TNNI3) from the pharma Proteomics Project of the UK Biobank cohort (over 45,000 participants sampled at recruitment).ResultsWe identified significant variability in circulating proteins with age, sex, ancestry, alcohol intake, smoking, and medication intake. Phenome-wide association studies highlighted the range of cardiovascular clinical features with relationships to protein levels.Genome-wide genetic association studies identified variants near GCKR, APOE, and SERPINA1, that modified multiple circulating protein levels (BAG3, CDKN1A, and/orNOTCH1). NT-proBNP and BNP levels associated with variants in BAG3. ACE2 levels were increased with a diagnosis of hypertension or diabetes and were influenced by variants in genes associated with diabetes (HNF1A, HNF4A). Two-sample Mendelian randomisation identified ACE2 as protective for systolic blood pressure and Type-2 diabetes.ConclusionsFrom a panel of circulating proteins, the results from this observational study provide evidence that ACE2 is causally associated with hypertension and diabetes. Thissuggests that ACE2 stimulation may provide additional protection from these cardiovascular diseases. This study provides an improved understanding of the circula
-
Journal articleAkbari T, Hammersley DJ, May CY-Y, et al., 2025,
The impact of cardio-renal-metabolic profile in dilated cardiomyopathy
, Current Cardiology Reports, Vol: 27, ISSN: 1534-3170Purpose of ReviewDilated cardiomyopathy is an important contributor to heart failure burden worldwide. With an aging population and rising multimorbidity, in this review, we describe the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and renal failure in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and focus on common underlying mechanisms, evaluate outcomes in these patients and highlight newer therapeutic strategies.Recent FindingsA significant proportion of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy has concomitant metabolic syndrome and renal disease. This combination of multimorbidity portends worse prognosis and often presents unique challenges in treatment given the complex interplay and shared pathophysiological pathways.SummaryOptimization of the cardio-renal-metabolic profile should be a key consideration in the management of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. Therapeutic strategies targeting common pathophysiological pathways are needed in order to improve overall outcomes.
-
Journal articleSajjad N, Zhang H, Ng F, et al., 2025,
Improving medical students' research skills: a study on confidence and performance through in-course assessments [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]
, MedEdPublish, Vol: 15, ISSN: 2312-7996IntroductionResearch skills account for a core part of competent medical practice to improve patient outcome. Studies have highlighted the significance of supporting students learning experience during a research skills course by stimulating a research-oriented mindset and offering timely feedback. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of our research skills curriculum consisting of three in-course assessments (ICA), workshops and formative tutorials, on enhancing students’ confidence and performance in clinical research tasks.MethodStudents (n=26) completed an anonymised end-of-module survey on their self-perceived confidence rating before and after interventions. We aimed to quantify the relationship between the effectiveness of our in-course interventions, comprising workshops and tutorials, and students’ confidence rating (CR) and research proficiency (formative and summative assessment scores) using Likert scales. Within each teaching block, we compared students’ CR before and after each intervention, as well as the formative and summative assessment scores in each ICA using difference tests. We also performed univariate correlation tests between CR or student engagement and formative or summative ICA scores.ResultsStatistically significant increases in self-perceived CR after each intervention were observed in all ICAs. For each ICA, students obtained a significant score increase between formative and summative assessment. There was a gradual increase in students’ CR during the three ICAs. Post-workshop and post-tutorial CR levels were always higher compared to before the sessions. In ICA1, the formative score was positively correlated with pre-tutorial CR. Performance in the ICA 2 formative assessment was positively linked with pre-workshop CR. In ICA 3, the pre-abstract workshop CR was positively associated with formative lay summary and scientific abstract scores.ConclusionHere we demonstrate the effectiveness of educ
-
Journal articleTeh I, Moulin K, Ferreira PF, et al., 2025,
Multi-center investigation of cardiac diffusion tensor imaging in healthy volunteers by the Society of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Cardiac Diffusion Special Interest Group NETwork (SIGNET)
, Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, Vol: 27, ISSN: 1097-6647BackgroundCardiac diffusion tensor imaging (cDTI) is an emerging technique for microstructural characterization of the heart and has shown clinical potential in a range of cardiomyopathies. However, there is substantial variation reported for in vivo cDTI results across the literature, and sensitivity of cDTI to differences in imaging sites, scanners, acquisition protocols, and post-processing methods remains incompletely understood.MethodsSIGNET is a prospective multi-center, observational study in traveling and non-traveling healthy volunteers. The study was initiated by the executive board of the Society of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) Cardiac Diffusion Special Interest Group (SIG) as a follow-up to a previous multi-center study on phantom validation of cardiac DTI and a recently published SCMR consensus statement on cardiac diffusion MRI. The study has been developed by the Project Management Committee in consultation with the SCMR cardiac diffusion SIG, which includes international experts in cardiac diffusion MRI. To date, more than 20 international institutions have engaged with the study, including sites that are new to cardiac DTI, making this the largest collaborative effort in the field.DiscussionSIGNET will provide important information about the key sources of variation in cardiac DTI. This will help rationalize strategies for addressing and minimizing such variation. Harmonization of protocols in this and future studies will underpin efforts to translate cardiac DTI for clinical application.
This data is extracted from the Web of Science and reproduced under a licence from Thomson Reuters. You may not copy or re-distribute this data in whole or in part without the written consent of the Science business of Thomson Reuters.