Molecular Imaging-Derived Biomarker of Cardiac Nerve Integrity - Introducing High NET Affinity PET Probe F-AF78.

Radiolabeled agents that are substrates for the norepinephrine transporter (NET) can be used to quantify cardiac sympathetic nervous conditions and have been demonstrated to identify high-risk congestive heart failure (HF) patients prone to arrhythmic events. We aimed to fully characterize the kinetic profile of the novel F-labeled NET probe AF78 for PET imaging of the cardiac sympathetic nervous system (SNS) among various species. F-AF78 was compared to norepinephrine (NE) and established SNS radiotracers by employing cell assays, followed by an approach with healthy rats, rabbits and nonhuman primates (NHPs).

Levels and dynamics of estimated glomerular filtration rate and recurrent vascular events and death in patients with minor stroke or transient ischemic attack.

Background And Purpose: Impaired kidney function is associated with an increased risk of vascular events in acute stroke patients, when assessed by single measurements of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). It is unknown whether repeated measurements provide additional information for risk prediction.

Methods: The MonDAFIS (Systematic Monitoring for Detection of Atrial Fibrillation in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke) study randomly assigned 3465 acute ischemic stroke patients to either standard procedures or an additive Holter electrocardiogram.

CARS Imaging Advances Early Diagnosis of Cardiac Manifestation of Fabry Disease.

Vibrational spectroscopy can detect characteristic biomolecular signatures and thus has the potential to support diagnostics. Fabry disease (FD) is a lipid disorder disease that leads to accumulations of globotriaosylceramide in different organs, including the heart, which is particularly critical for the patient's prognosis. Effective treatment options are available if initiated at early disease stages, but many patients are late- or under-diagnosed.

Serum glial fibrillary acidic protein indicates memory impairment in patients with chronic heart failure.

Aims: Cognitive dysfunction occurs frequently in patients with heart failure (HF), but early detection remains challenging. Serum glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) is an emerging biomarker of cognitive decline in disorders of primary neurodegeneration such as Alzheimer's disease. We evaluated the utility of serum GFAP as a biomarker for cognitive dysfunction and structural brain damage in patients with stable chronic HF.

The era of in vivo T cell engineering.

Cell therapy with genetically engineered T cells has revolutionized the treatment of malignant diseases, but its potential use beyond the realms of oncology has been underexplored. In a recent study, Rurik et al. built on the technologies underlying mRNA vaccines to transduce T cells in vivo, harnessing them to target cardiac fibrosis.

Quantification correction for free-breathing myocardial T mapping in mice using a recursively derived description of a T* relaxation pathway.

Background: Fast and accurate T mapping in myocardium is still a major challenge, particularly in small animal models. The complex sequence design owing to electrocardiogram and respiratory gating leads to quantification errors in in vivo experiments, due to variations of the T relaxation pathway. In this study, we present an improved quantification method for T using a newly derived formalism of a T* relaxation pathway.

Treatment of Fabry Disease management with migalastat-outcome from a prospective 24 months observational multicenter study (FAMOUS).

Aims: Fabry disease (FD) is an X-linked lysosomal storage disorder caused by a deficiency of the lysosomal enzyme α-galactosidase A (GLA/AGAL), resulting in the lysosomal accumulation of globotriaosylceramide (Gb3). Patients with amenable GLA mutations can be treated with migalastat, an oral pharmacological chaperone increasing endogenous AGAL activity. In this prospective observational multicentre study, safety as well as cardiovascular, renal, and patient-reported outcomes and disease biomarkers were assessed after 12 and 24 months of migalastat treatment under 'real-world' conditions.

Cancer Incidence and Mortality According to Pre-Existing Heart Failure in a Community-Based Cohort.

Background: Studies assessing whether heart failure (HF) is associated with cancer and cancer-related mortality have yielded conflicting results.

Objectives: This study assessed cancer incidence and mortality according to pre-existing HF in a community-based cohort.

Methods: Among individuals ≥50 years of age from the Puglia region in Italy with administrative health data from 2002 to 2018, no cancer within 3 years before the baseline evaluation, and ≥5-year follow-up, the study matched 104,020 subjects with HF at baseline with 104,020 control subjects according to age, sex, drug-derived complexity index, Charlson comorbidity index, and follow-up duration.

Genetic Insights into Primary Restrictive Cardiomyopathy.

Restrictive cardiomyopathy is a rare cardiac disease causing severe diastolic dysfunction, ventricular stiffness and dilated atria. In consequence, it induces heart failure often with preserved ejection fraction and is associated with a high mortality. Since it is a poor clinical prognosis, patients with restrictive cardiomyopathy frequently require heart transplantation.

Assessment of Myocardial Microstructure in a Murine Model of Obesity-Related Cardiac Dysfunction by Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging at 7T.

Background: Obesity exerts multiple deleterious effects on the heart that may ultimately lead to cardiac failure. This study sought to characterize myocardial microstructure and function in an experimental model of obesity-related cardiac dysfunction.

Methods: Male C57BL/6N mice were fed either a high-fat diet (HFD; 60 kcal% fat, = 12) or standard control diet (9 kcal% fat, = 10) for 15 weeks.

Quality of life assessed 6 months after hospitalisation for acute heart failure: an analysis from REPORT-HF (international REgistry to assess medical Practice with lOngitudinal obseRvation for Treatment of Heart Failure).

Aims: Recovery of well-being after hospitalisation for acute heart failure (AHF) is a measure of the success of interventions and the quality of care but has rarely been quantified. Accordingly, we measured health status after discharge in an international registry (REPORT-HF) of AHF.

Methods And Results: The analysis included 4606 patients with AHF who survived to hospital discharge, had known vital status at 6 months, and were enrolled in the United States of America, Russian Federation, or Western Europe, where the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) was administered.

Adult T-cells impair neonatal cardiac regeneration.

Aims: Newborn mice and humans display transient cardiac regenerative potential that rapidly declines postnatally. Patients who survive a myocardial infarction (MI) often develop chronic heart failure due to the heart's poor regeneration capacity. We hypothesized that the cardiac 'regenerative-to-scarring' transition might be driven by the perinatal shifts observed in the circulating T-cell compartment.

High-resolution simulation of B field conditions in the human heart from segmented computed tomography images.

B inhomogeneity leads to imaging artifacts in cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in particular dark band artifacts with steady-state free precession pulse sequences. The limited spatial resolution of MR-derived in vivo B maps and the lack of population data prevent systematic analysis of the problem at hand and the development of optimized B shim strategies. We used readily available clinical computed tomography (CT) images to simulate the B conditions in the human heart at high spatial resolution.

Global disparities in prescription of guideline-recommended drugs for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.

Background: Heart failure (HF) is a global challenge, with lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs) carrying a large share of the burden. Treatment for HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) improves survival but is often underused. Economic factors might have an important effect on the use of medicines.

Diagnostic performance of IQ·SPECT with high-speed scanning: A preliminary quality control study in obese patients.

Background: IQ·SPECT is a recently introduced collimator design for myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI). Little data exist on use of this collimator type in obese patients, particularly Class 2 or 3 [body mass index (BMI) > 35 kg/m].

Methods: Two consecutive rest-stress MPI scans were prospectively acquired using a conventional collimator and IQ·SPECT (acquisition times of 20 and 7 minutes, respectively) in 20 patients with a BMI of >30 kg/m.

ACKR3 regulates platelet activation and ischemia-reperfusion tissue injury.

Platelet activation plays a critical role in thrombosis. Inhibition of platelet activation is a cornerstone in treatment of acute organ ischemia. Platelet ACKR3 surface expression is independently associated with all-cause mortality in CAD patients.

The First Year of Noninvasive Remote Telemonitoring in Chronic Heart Failure Is not Cost Saving but Improves Quality of Life: The Randomized Controlled CardioBBEAT Trial.

Remote telemonitoring (RTM) for patients with chronic heart failure (HF) holds promise to improve prognosis and well-being beyond the standard of care (SoC). The CardioBBEAT trial assessed the health economic and clinical impact of an interactive bidirectional RTM system (Motiva) versus SoC for patients with HF and a reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), in Germany. This multicenter, randomized controlled trial enrolled 621 patients with HFrEF (mean age 63.

Effects of acute ischemia and hypoxia in young and adult calsequestrin (CSQ2) knock-out and wild-type mice.

Calsequestrin (CSQ2) is the main Ca-binding protein in the sarcoplasmic reticulum of the mammalian heart. In order to understand the function of calsequestrin better, we compared two age groups (young: 4-5 months of age versus adult: 18 months of age) of CSQ2 knock-out mice (CSQ2(-/-)) and littermate wild-type mice (CSQ2(+/+)). Using echocardiography, in adult mice, the basal left ventricular ejection fraction and the spontaneous beating rate were lower in CSQ2(-/-) compared to CSQ2(+/+).

High SUVs Have More Robust Repeatability in Patients with Metastatic Prostate Cancer: Results from a Prospective Test-Retest Cohort Imaged with F-DCFPyL.

Objectives: In patients with prostate cancer (PC) receiving prostate-specific membrane antigen- (PSMA-) targeted radioligand therapy (RLT), higher baseline standardized uptake values (SUVs) are linked to improved outcome. Thus, readers deciding on RLT must have certainty on the repeatability of PSMA uptake metrics. As such, we aimed to evaluate the test-retest repeatability of lesion uptake in a large cohort of patients imaged with F-DCFPyL.

A novel antisymmetric 16-element transceiver dipole antenna array for parallel transmit cardiac MRI in pigs at 7 T.

To improve parallel transmit (pTx) and receive performance for cardiac MRI (cMRI) in pigs at 7 T, a dedicated transmit/receive (Tx/Rx), 16-element antisymmetric dipole antenna array, which combines L-shaped and straight dipoles, was designed, implemented, and evaluated in both cadavers and animals in vivo. Electromagnetic-field simulations were performed with the new 16-element dipole antenna array loaded with a pig thorax-shaped phantom and compared with an eight-element array of straight dipoles. The new dipole array was interfaced to a 7 T scanner in pTx mode (8Tx/16Rx).