Quantitative assessment of myocardial extracellular volume fraction in non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy and its relation to systolic dysfunction

Background Interstitial myocardial fibrosis is a histological hallmark of non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), and may play an important role in adverse remodelling and progressive systolic dysfunction. T1-mapping enables noninvasive assessment of diffuse fibrosis by quantification of myocardial extracellular volume fraction (ECV). We hypothesized that CMR would identify a raised ECV in DCM which would correlate with the degree of systolic dysfunction.