Cardiovascular Imaging
The research focus in our group is cardiovascular imaging, with an
emphasis on MRI. This effort includes:
• Basic biophysics where we characterize the relationship
between MR signals and underlying physiology in blood and
tissue;
• engineering to develop more effective methods to acquire,
analyze, and visualize medical images;
• and application of these tools to assessment, treatment planning,
and therapy guidance in ischemic and congenital heart diseases
and neurovascular and peripheral vascular diseases.
Contributions from the group have included the development of methods to characterize effects of oxygen in blood and tissue on MRI signal behaviour in vivo (Figure 1), the introduction of a tool to automatically monitor vessels of interest for the arrival of a contrast agent to facilitate a rapid MR acquisition of a 3D vascular map (Figure 2), and the development of real-time adaptive tools in MRI for improving the quality of coronary artery images (Figure 3). Through work with many clinical collaborators, these tools are being used in a wide range of patient studies.
Our current work builds on the group’s central role in the Ontario Consortium for Cardiac Imaging (cardiacimaging.ca) where the focus is to develop and evaluate the role of multiple imaging modalities applied to cardiac diseases and in the Imaging Research Centre for Cardiac Intervention (ircci.ca) where we will design and test new imaging approaches to guide innovative minimally invasive cardiovascular therapies.
Specific projects include:
• The expansion of real-time adaptive MRI to create a robust
and comprehensive acquisition, visualization, and feedback
control platform for broad clinical application;
• The extension of rapid imaging methods to provide integrated
acquisition of physiological and anatomical information necessary
to assess vascular diseases;
• The development of tools for MRI-guided catheter-based
interventions;
• The development of multi-modality image fusion tools to
integrate a wide spectrum of information in clinical decision
making and therapy guidance;
• MR tissue characterization for the study of myocardial disease
and tumour vascularity as well as for monitoring tissue and
microcirculation development under new gene and cell therapies
and tissue ablation under electrophysiology interventions
For more information, please go to http://sunnybrook.ca/research/?page=cardiomrihome
Graduate Students:
- Kevan Anderson - MRI Guidance for Cardiovascular Interventions
- General Leung
- Garry Liu - Motion Characterization and Compensation in Coronary MRI
- Samuel Oduneye
- Mihaela Pop - MRI in Electrophysiology Interventions
Selected References:
Link to Pubmed Publications-
W.D. Foltz, H. Huang, S. Fort, G.A. Wright, “Vasodilator response assessment in porcine myocardium using MR relaxometry,” Circulation, 106(21):2714-19,2002.
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M.S. Sussman, J.A. Stainsby, N. Robert, N. Merchant, G.A. Wright, “Variable-Density Adaptive Imaging for High-Resolution Coronary Artery MRI,” Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 753- 764, November 2002. (Finalist for II Rabi Young Investigator Award, ISMRM, 2002)
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.A. Stainsby, M.S Sussman, M.L. Flexman, G.A. Wright, “Realtime Magnetic Resonance with Physiologic Monitoring for Improved Scan Localization”, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 53(4):954-9, 2005.
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R. Dharmakumar, X. Qi, J. Hong, G.A. Wright, “Detecting Microcirculatory Changes in Blood Oxygen State with Steady- State Free Precession Imaging”, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 55(6):1372-1380, 2006.
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J.S. Detsky, J.A. Stainsby, R. Vijayaraghavan, J.J. Graham, A.J. Dick and G.A. Wright, “Inversion Recovery-Prepared SSFP for Cardiac-Phase-Resolved Delayed Enhancement MRI”. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 58(2): 365-372, 2007.
