Late Gadolinium-Enhancement Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Identifies Postinfarction Myocardial Fibrosis and the Border Zone at the Near Cellular Level in Ex Vivo Rat Heart

Abstract

these data provide important validation of LGE at nearly the cellular level for detection of fibrosis after myocardial infarction. Although LGE can detect heterogeneous patches of fibrosis and viable cardiomyocytes as patches of intermediate signal intensity, the percentage of intermediate signal intensity voxels is resolution dependent. Thus, at clinical resolutions, distinguishing the peri-infarct border zone from partial volume averaging with LGE is challenging.