Assessment of myocardial fatty degeneration ex vivo by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Objective To evaluate the feasibility and accuracy of 1H-MRS in the assessment of myocardial fatty degeneration ex vivo.Methods Ten specimens of heart were examined by 1.5 T GE MR scanner.The sequences of 1H-MRS was scanned in LAD,LCX and RCA distribution areas as ROIs in mid-cavity of left cardiac ventricle respectively.The percentages of TG were calculated.The correlations between TG% assessed by MRS and counts of cardiomyocytes with fatty degeneration in voxels of three distribution areas were analyzed respectively.Results Each spectrum was good for analyzing and the spectral peaks were identified with the following chemical shifts: water,myoinositol,choline,creatine,and TG.Neither the percentage of TG nor the cell counts' differences in distribution areas was statistically significant(P=0.868,P=0.101).There was a positive correlation between the percentage of TG and count of cells with fatty degeneration (P=0.001).Conclusion Assessment of myocardial intracellular TG by 1H-MRS ex vivo is feasible and there is positive correlation between the MRS assesment of TG% and cell count.