According to the British Heart Foundation, heart and circulatory diseases cause more than a quarter (27%) of all deaths in the UK, which equates to more than 160,000 deaths each year—or one death every three minutes.
In a recent study published in Advanced Science, researchers found that injection of the trace mineral manganese could enhance MRI scans so that they provided more accurate details of heart function than traditional MRI methods.
These findings could have major implications for the treatment of heart attack patients.
The findings could also be of great use in the preclinical evaluation of treatments for patients who suffer from cardiacischemia—a reduction in blood supply to the heart muscle that could lead to cardiac arrest.
The study also suggests that if manganese-enhanced MRI is performed within the first few hours of a heart attack, it could be used to determine the optimal treatment regime for individual patients—helping to regulate changes in the cardiac muscle and thereby further improving survival chances.
The study is from the University of Surrey. One author is Dr. Patrizia Camelliti.
In the study, the findings were evaluated by the infarct size and blood supply at three key intervals: one hour, one day and 14 days after a heart attack was induced.
The team says magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is increasingly used to diagnose and give information on heart conditions.
This research using mice allows researchers to measure the health status of the heart muscle rapidly after a heart attack and could provide important information for optimizing treatments in patients.
If you care about heart health, please read studies about this hormone may reduce irregular heartbeat, inflammation and the findings of scientists develop new method to treat heart disease.
For more information about heart disease and your health, please see recent studies about an important cause of heart disease and results showing that common early sign of heart disease may also mean high cancer risk.
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