UTILIZING CONTRAST MRI AFTER A HEART ATTACK COULD EXPAND ENDURANCE-

As stated by the British Heart Foundation, circulatory and heart diseases cause more than a quarter (27%) of all deaths in the UK, which compares to more than 160,000 deaths each year—or one death every three minutes. The research, published in the top science journal Advanced Science, found that injection of the trace mineral manganese could enhance MRI scans so that they provided more accurate details of heart function than traditional MRI methods. The discoveries could also be of great utility in the preclinical evaluation of treatments for patients who experienced hardship from cardiac ischemia—a cutting in blood supply to the heart muscle that could lead to cardiac arrest. The analysis also suggests that if manganese-enhanced MRI is executed within the first few hours of a heart attack it could be used to determine the optimal treatment regime for individual patients—helping to modulate changes in the cardiac muscle and thereby further improving survival chances. Findings were evaluated by examining the infarct size and blood supply at three key intervals: one hour, one day, and 14 days after myocardial infarction was induced. Dr. Patrizia Camelliti, at the University of Surrey, said: "Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is increasingly used to diagnose and give information on heart conditions. This research using mice allows us to rapidly measure the heart muscle's health status after a heart attack and could provide important information for optimizing treatments in patients.