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An abstract of the article "Paradoxical effect of smoking following acute myocardial infarction," by Giuliana Durighel and colleagues is presented.

An abstract of the article "Quantification of aortic pulse wave velocity in preterm infants using 4D phase contrast MRI," by Kathryn Broadhouse, Anthony N. Price, Giuliana Durighel, Anna Finnemore, David J. Cox, A.D. Edwards, Joseph V. Hajnal and Alan Groves is presented.

An abstract of the article "Validation of MRI quantification of biventricular cardiac function in term and preterm neonates," by Anna Finnemore, Anthony N. Price, Giuliana Durighel, Kathryn Broadhouse, David J. Cox, and Alan Groves is presented.

An abstract of the article "Analysis of neonatal cardiac function in infants with and without patent ductus arteriosus," by Kathryn Broadhouse, Anthony N. Price, Giuliana Durighel, Anna Finnemore, David J. Cox, A.D. Edwards, Joseph V. Hajnal, and Alan Groves is presented.

An abstract of the conference paper "Learning curve for quantification of right ventricular size and systolic function in pulmonary arterial hypertension: comparison of cardiac magnetic resonance and three dimensional echocardiography," by Robert A. Levine, and colleagues is presented.

The article presents an abstract on a paper titled "Impact of Neonatal Cardiac Receive-Array Coil on SNR and CNR in Newborn Infants," presented at the 2011 Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR)/Euro CMR Joint Scientific Sessions held in France.

Background: Many pathologies seen in the preterm population are associated with abnormal blood supply, yet robust evaluation of preterm cardiac function is scarce and consequently normative ranges in this population are limited. The aim of this study was to quantify and validate left ventricular dimension and function in preterm infants using cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR). An initial investigation of the impact of the common congenital defect patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) was then carried out. Methods: Steady State Free Procession short axis stacks were acquired. Normative ranges of left ventricular end diastolic volume (EDV), stroke volume (SV), left ventricular output (LVO), ejection fraction (EF), left ventricular (LV) mass, wall thickness and fractional thickening were determined in “healthy” (control) neonates. Left ventricular parameters were then investigated in PDA infants. Unpaired student t-tests compared the 2 groups. Multiple linear regression analysis assessed impact of shunt volume in PDA infants, p-value ≤ 0.05 being significant. Results: 29 control infants median (range) corrected gestational age at scan 34+6(31+1-39+3) weeks were scanned. EDV, SV, LVO, LV mass normalized by weight and EF were shown to decrease with increasing corrected gestational age (cGA) in controls. In 16 PDA infants (cGA 30+3 (27+3-36+1) weeks) left ventricular dimension and output were significantly increased, yet there was no significant difference in ejection fraction and fractional thickening between the two groups. A significant association between shunt volume and increased left ventricular mass correcting for postnatal age and corrected gestational age existed. Conclusion: CMR assessment of left ventricular function has been validated in neonates, providing more robust normative ranges of left ventricular dimension and function in this population. Initial investigation of PDA infants would suggest that function is relatively maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Cardiac phenotypes, such as left ventricular (LV) mass, demonstrate high heritability although most genes associated with these complex traits remain unidentified. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have relied on conventional 2D cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) as the gold-standard for phenotyping. However this technique is insensitive to the regional variations in wall thickness which are often associated with left ventricular hypertrophy and require large cohorts to reach significance. Here we test whether automated cardiac phenotyping using high spatial resolution CMR atlases can achieve improved precision for mapping wall thickness in healthy populations and whether smaller sample sizes are required compared to conventional methods. Methods LV short-axis cine images were acquired in 138 healthy volunteers using standard 2D imaging and 3D high spatial resolution CMR. A multi-atlas technique was used to segment and co-register each image. The agreement between methods for end-diastolic volume and mass was made using Bland-Altman analysis in 20 subjects. The 3D and 2D segmentations of the LV were compared to manual labeling by the proportion of concordant voxels (Dice coefficient) and the distances separating corresponding points. Parametric and nonparametric data were analysed with paired t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank test respectively. Voxelwise power calculations used the interstudy variances of wall thickness. Results The 3D volumetric measurements showed no bias compared to 2D imaging. The segmented 3D images were more accurate than 2D images for defining the epicardium (Dice: 0.95vs0.93, P < 0.001; mean error 1.3mm vs 2.2mm, P < 0.001) and endocardium (Dice 0.95 vs 0.93, P < 0.001; mean error 1.1mm vs 2.0mm, P < 0.001).The 3D technique resulted in significant differences in wall thickness assessment at the base, septum and apex of the LV compared to 2D (P < 0.001). Fewer subjects were required for 3D imaging to detect a 1mm difference in wall thickness (72 vs 56, P < 0.001). Conclusions High spatial resolution CMR with automated phenotyping provides greater power for mapping wall thickness than conventional 2D imaging and enables a reduction in the sample size required for studies of environmental and genetic determinants of LV wall thickness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "The UK GenScan study: population-based imaging genetics research using 3D Cardiac Magnetic Resonance," by Antonio de Marvao, Tim Dawes, Niall G. Keenan, Wenjia Bai, Wenzhe Shi, Giuliana Durighel, Tamara Diamond, Laura Monje-Garcia, and colleagues is presented.

An abstract on the divergent effects of obesity on the aortic stiffness in young and old adults is presented.

An abstract of the article "Frequency drift during intensive SSFP scanning: implications and solution for 3T neonatal CMR," by Anthony N. Price and colleagues is presented.

An abstract of the paper "The ischemic area-at-risk on T2-weighted MRI shows recovery of systolic strain at 1 year," by Ben Ariff and colleagues, from the 2011 SCMR/Euro CMR Joint Scientific Sessions, held in Nice, France, from February 3-6, 2011, is presented.