Understanding heart injury after a heart attack through advanced imaging studies

Quantitative cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging techniques for prediction of complications after acute myocardial infarction

The BHF has awarded an Intermediate Clinical Research Fellowship to Dr Erica Dall Armellina from the University of Oxford to launch an imaging programme which will use innovative techniques to look at injury to heart muscle in patients who have had a heart attack. She will study 156 patients who have had a heart attack, looking in detail at how their heart muscle fibres have been damaged. She will look at the characteristics of the fibres that have been irreversibly damaged to understand what may cause this. In areas of damage she will look at the neighbouring fibres to see if they have lost their ability to beat in a coordinated fashion and may therefore be causing an abnormal heart rhythm. Through this imaging, the research team should be able to measure the extent of damage in the early hours after a heart attack and understand the changes that can lead to complications for the patient. Understanding the prognosis in these patients will help guide treatments that aim to reduce heart damage, with potential applicability in a much larger group of patients.