Ricerc@Sapienza

Purpose: Cardiac involvement in Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) is increasingly recognized as a mayor cause of morbidity and mortality. The aim of present study is to investigate the early stages of cardiac involvement in SSc by Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR), combining the non-invasive detection of myocardial inflammation and fibrosis using T2 and T1 mapping techniques and the assessment of microcirculatory impairment through perfusion response to cold pressor test (CPT).

Magnetic resonance imaging is effective for non-invasive detection of myocardial diseases by extracellular volume fraction (ECV) estimation. A new methodology for T1 and ECV mapping is tested in this work, comparing results with other well-consolidated methods. The associated level of uncertainty for data was also estimated, to assess the reliability of the technique. A phantom with known T1 values was used for reference, and 60 subjects (40 controls, 20 diseased patients) were examined, using the modified look-locker inversion-recovery (MOLLI) method.