Jacksonville, Fla. – University of Florida researchers are studying an experimental heart imaging technique to determine whether it can be used to more accurately – and less expensively – predict and diagnose coronary artery disease.
The procedure involves injecting a small amount of a nontoxic contrast agent into a patient’s vein and using a cardiac magnetic resonance imaging scanner to track the contrast agent as it makes its way through the heart.
The scanner uses pulses of radiofrequency energy and magnetic fields to provide clear, detailed pictures of the heart muscle, coronary arteries and surrounding structures. Use of the contrast agent helps doctors assess blood supply to the heart muscle.
“A cardiac MRI provides, in a single test, more early diagnostic information than a cardiac nuclear medicine test and an echocardiogram combined,” said Arnold Friedman, M.D., associate chairman for the UF Department of Radiology.
UF scientists affiliated with UF’s department of radiology, the division of cardiology in Jacksonville and the division of cardiovascular medicine in Gainesville are conducting the study along with researchers at five other U.S. sites. They will compare the imaging method with conventional heart tests to determine whether using the contrast agent in conjunction with the MRI scanner more accurately detects decreased blood flow to the heart and the extent of obstructions in the coronary vessels supplying the heart muscle with blood. Their findings will then be submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for review.
“It is a nice recognition to be chosen as one of the six sites in the U.S.,” said Norbert Wilke, M.D., a UF associate professor of radiology and cardiology and the principal investigator of the study at the Jacksonville/Gainesville site.
The technique is currently being offered to some Shands Jacksonville emergency department patients and Malcom Randall Veterans Affairs Medical Center patients in Gainesville who present with chest pain with the hope of providing a quicker diagnosis of coronary artery disease.
The sites were selected to participate based on the facilities’ technological capabilities and the level of physician experience in cardiac MRI. Shands Jacksonville’s recent acquisition of the most advanced, cardiovascular-dedicated MRI scanner in North Florida will prove invaluable in gathering study results, explained Wilke. This will uniquely position the hospital to provide the procedure more routinely to its patients if the FDA approves it.
Wilke was chosen as the site’s principal investigator because of his pioneering research work with this test in the early 1990s. He also has a joint faculty appointment in the department of radiology and the department of medicine’s division of cardiology.
“The joint appointment uniquely qualifies [Wilke] to perform and interpret cardiac MRI,” Friedman said.