Abstract
Heart transplantation (HTx) is a well-established life-saving procedure but is associated
with severe complications. Regular monitoring of heart transplant recipients is thus
important for the early detection of these complications. Current standard clinical tests,
however, rely on frequent invasive procedures including endomyocardial biopsies (EMB) and
catheter angiography (Cath). In addition, these standard tests are limited by sampling error,
the diffuse nature of HTx complications, and high health care utilization cost, estimated at
>$150,000 per year per patient in the US. To address these limitations, our group has
developed a non-invasive multiparametric cardiac MRI, which can quantify abnormal changes in
heart tissue and function. Our efforts during the initial period of this study (NIH funded
2014-2019) have focused on the two major complications of HTx: 1) acute cardiac rejection
(ACR), the leading cause of death in the first year after heart transplant; and 2) cardiac
allograft vasculopathy (CAV), the greatest risk factor for 5-year mortality beyond the first
year after heart transplantation. For these major compilation, our previous cardiac MRI
studies have identified new non-invasive cardiac MRI measures that can detect abnormalities
of heart tissue and function. In addition, the data was able to show that heart donor and
recipient mismatch (age, sex, height, weight, etc.) can cause changes in tissue and function
of the transplanted heart.
