The heart is the organ that pumps blood, with its life-giving oxygen and nutrients, to all tissues of the body. If the pumping action of the heart becomes inefficient, vital organs like the brain and kidneys suffer.And if the heart stops working altogether, death occurs within minutes. Life itself is completely dependent on the efficient operation of the heart.
There are many kinds of heart disease, and they can affect the heart in several ways. But the ultimate problem with all varieties of heart disease is that, in one way or another, they can disrupt the vital pumping action of the heart.
Medical Imaging at the Cellular Level
Magnetic resonance medical imaging, which is based on the principles of nuclear magnetic resonance, produces an image of the NMR signal in a narrow slice right through the human body. Pictures taken sequentially create a three dimensional picture of anatomical structures. Magnetic resonance medical imaging is the analytical tool of choice for viewing the nervous system and evaluating soft tissue.
Molecular magnetic resonance imaging brings the level of visualization and analysis to the cellular and molecular level. At this level, it's possible to stalk and evaluate cellular functions that can provide never-before-available insight into the nature of the disease process.
For example, there has long been an established correlation between inflammation and heart disease. Nevertheless, the medical imaging tools to calculate inflammation related to the heart have simply not been available at a fine enough level of measurement to completely explore the relationship.
On January sixteenth 2007 the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences printed a study by researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York that uses molecular MRI medical imaging to get insight into the relationship between inflammation and heart disease. Researchers made a synthetic material, gadolinium diethyltriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA), that's able to discover and connect to white blood cells imbedded in arterial walls.
The DPTA allowed mMRI medical imaging visualization of the WBC's, providing the ability to actually number the cells and calculate their stability. Researchers discovered a relationship between the number of white cells imbedded in the arterial walls and the odds of following heart attack.
The initial research was performed on mice. Additional research will be conducted on larger animals and if it is successful, the research will move to human clinical trials.
The search for better, more efficient and more specific medical imaging 'tagging' media is the hottest new field of research in molecular magnetic resonance medical imaging. Recently, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have reported on research relating to a new medical imaging method for molecular magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that can detect molecules ten thousand times lower concentrations than traditional MRI techniques.
The method, called HYPER-CEST, for hyperpolarized xenon chemical exchange saturation transfer, increases the atom's MRI signal by hyperpolarizing them with laser light, then places the atoms into a nanoscale cage biosensor that is made specific for a particular protein target. This method will most likely be very useful in detecting cancer cells at the very earliest stages of cancer.