Scientific Reports (Jul 2021)

Comprehensive assessment of myocardial remodeling in ischemic heart disease by synchrotron propagation based X-ray phase contrast imaging

  • Ivo Planinc,
  • Patricia Garcia-Canadilla,
  • Hector Dejea,
  • Ivana Ilic,
  • Eduard Guasch,
  • Monica Zamora,
  • Fàtima Crispi,
  • Marco Stampanoni,
  • Davor Milicic,
  • Bart Bijnens,
  • Anne Bonnin,
  • Maja Cikes

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93054-6
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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Abstract Cardiovascular research is in an ongoing quest for a superior imaging method to integrate gross-anatomical information with microanatomy, combined with quantifiable parameters of cardiac structure. In recent years, synchrotron radiation-based X-ray Phase Contrast Imaging (X-PCI) has been extensively used to characterize soft tissue in detail. The objective was to use X-PCI to comprehensively quantify ischemic remodeling of different myocardial structures, from cell to organ level, in a rat model of myocardial infarction. Myocardial infarction-induced remodeling was recreated in a well-established rodent model. Ex vivo rodent hearts were imaged by propagation based X-PCI using two configurations resulting in 5.8 µm and 0.65 µm effective pixel size images. The acquired datasets were used for a comprehensive assessment of macrostructural changes including the whole heart and vascular tree morphology, and quantification of left ventricular myocardial thickness, mass, volume, and organization. On the meso-scale, tissue characteristics were explored and compared with histopathological methods, while microstructural changes were quantified by segmentation of cardiomyocytes and calculation of cross-sectional areas. Propagation based X-PCI provides detailed visualization and quantification of morphological changes on whole organ, tissue, vascular as well as individual cellular level of the ex vivo heart, with a single, non-destructive 3D imaging modality.