Cardiac QSM for the Detection of Intra-Myocardial Haemorrhage: an Initial Experience

Motivation: T2*-contrast is not-specific to iron in the heart, with edema having a competing and contradictory effect to iron. Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) may improve identification of intra-myocardial haemorrhage (IMH), through greater specificity to iron. Goal(s): To present our initial experience of using QSM for the assessment of IMH. Approach: 10 patients were scanned with QSM, 5 without myocardial infarcts to perform AHA-segmental analysis and 5 with scar to demonstrate the identification of IMH with QSM. Results: The mean AHA-segment susceptibility was 0.00±0.02ppm and precision 0.05±0.03ppm in the non-infarct-group. Four of the patients with scar had IMH, which was successfully identified with QSM. Impact: Cardiac quantitative susceptibility mapping successfully visualized intra-myocardial haemorrhage in four patients, and found no haemorrhage in one further patient, in agreement with the gold standard T2/T2* techniques.