Direct comparison of high-temporal-resolution CINE MRI with Doppler ultrasound for assessment of diastolic dysfunction in mice

Diastolic dysfunction is a sensitive early indicator of heart failure and can provide additional data to conventional measures of systolic function. Transmitral Doppler ultrasound, which measures the one‐dimensional flow of blood through the mitral valve, is currently the preferred method for the measurement of diastolic function, but the measurement of the left ventricular volume changes using high‐temporal‐resolution cinematic magnetic resonance imaging (CINE MRI) is an alternative approach which is emerging as a potentially more robust and user‐independent technique. Here, we investigated the performance of high‐temporal‐resolution CINE MRI and compared it with ultrasound for the detection of diastolic dysfunction in a mouse model of myocardial infarction. An in‐house, high‐temporal‐resolution, retrospectively gated CINE sequence was developed with a temporal resolution of 1 ms. Diastolic function in mice was assessed using a custom‐made, open‐source reconstruction package. Early (E) and late (A) left ventricular filling phases were easily identifiable, and these measurements were compared directly with high‐frequency, pulsed‐wave, Doppler ultrasound measurements of mitral valve inflow. A repeatability study established that high‐temporal‐resolution CINE MRI and Doppler ultrasound showed comparable accuracy when measuring E/A in normal control mice. However, when applied in a mouse model of myocardial infarction, high‐temporal‐resolution CINE MRI indicated diastolic heart failure (E/A = 0.94 ± 0.11), whereas ultrasound falsely detected normal cardiac function (E/A = 1.21 ± 0.11). The addition of high‐temporal‐resolution CINE MRI to preclinical imaging studies enhances the library of sequences available to cardiac researchers and potentially identifies diastolic heart failure early in disease progression.