Lipomatous metaplasia identified in rabbits with reperfused myocardial infarction by 3.0?T magnetic resonance imaging and histopathology

摘要

Background Cardiac lipomatous metaplasia (LM) occurs in patients with chronic ischemic heart disease and heart failure with unclear mechanisms. We studied coronary occlusion/reperfusion-induced myocardial infarction (MI) in rabbits during a 9-months follow-up using 3.0?T magnetic resonance scanner, and confirmed the presence of MI in acute phase and LM in chronic phase using histopathology. Methods MI was surgically induced in 10 rabbits by 90-min coronary artery occlusion and reperfusion. Forty-eight hours later, multiparametric cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI) was performed at a 3.0?T clinical scanner for MI diagnosis and cardiac function analysis. Afterwards, seven rabbits were scarified for histochemical staining with triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC), and hematoxylin-eosin (HE), and 3 were scanned with cMRI at 2?days, 2?weeks, 2?months and 9?months for longitudinal observations of morphological and functional changes, and the fate of the animals. Post-mortem TTC, HE and Masson's trichrome (MTC) were studied for chronic stage of MI. Results The size of acute MI correlated well between cMRI and TTC staining (r2=0.83). Global cardiac morphology-function analysis showed significant correlation between increasing acute MI size and decreasing ejection fraction (p Conclusions Acute MI and chronic LM were induced in rabbits and monitored with 3.0?T MRI. Studies on this platform may help investigate the mechanisms and therapeutic interventions for LM.