A method, CRM and
system for determining a cardiomyocyte
manganese ion uptake rate constant in one or more regions of interest in a heart of a subject comprising: a providing step comprising: providing a left ventricular myocardial image slice covering one or more regions of interest taken during a first time period; providing one or more
longitudinal relaxation time weighted images of the left ventricular
blood pool taken during the first time period to measure an average
signal intensity in blood during the first time period; providing a
hematocrit measurement; providing an
extracellular volume measurement for each of the one or more regions of interest; an administration step comprising administering a contrast agent comprising
manganese 2+ ions; an
image acquisition step comprising: performing
image acquisition of the left ventricular
blood pool using a
longitudinal relaxation time weighted
pulse sequence at a plurality of time intervals during a second time period to measure respective
signal intensities in blood at the plurality of time intervals; performing a
longitudinal relaxation time map
image acquisition of a left ventricular myocardial image slice covering the one or more regions of interest during a third time period; a measurement step comprising measuring a
signal intensity in blood at each of the plurality of time intervals using an image taken at a time point within said corresponding time interval; and a calculation step comprising: calculating a change in a myocardial
longitudinal relaxation rate for each
region of interest from a baseline myocardial
longitudinal relaxation rate extracted from the myocardial image slice taken during the first time period and a myocardial
longitudinal relaxation rate at an end time point of an MRI examination extracted from the myocardial image slice during the third time period; calculating a blood longitudinal
relaxation rate for each of the plurality of time intervals using respective signal intensities in blood at the plurality of time intervals and a relationship between
signal intensity and said plurality of relaxation rates using the integral over all the changes in blood longitudinal
relaxation rate in conjunction with the myocardial longitudinal
relaxation rate at the end time point in a proportionality relationship with a cardiomyocyte Mn2+
uptake rate constant to estimate the cardiomyocyte Mn2+
uptake rate constant for each of the one or more regions of interest; wherein said first time period is before an administration of the contrast agent, said second time period is during and after an administration of the contrast agent, and said third time period encompasses the end timepoint of an MRI examination.