Cardiac magnetic resonance T2 mapping for monitoring acute cardiac transplant rejection

Cardiac transplantation is the treatment for some patients with end-stage heart failure. After transplantation asymptomatic acute allograft rejection is a major factor impacting survival in the first 12 months. Current transplant monitoring requires frequent right heart catheterizations, endomyocardial biopsies (EMB), and echocardiography. CMR imaging, comparatively less invasive, has been studied previously in the transplanted heart and prolonged T2 relaxation has shown correlation to transplant edema and rejection [ 1 ]. We hypothesize that prolonged T2 relaxation in transplant edema reflects rejection, and that quantitative T2 mapping will correlate with pathological and clinical findings.