Measuring age-dependent myocardial stiffness across the cardiac cycle using MR elastography: A reproducibility study

Purpose To assess reproducibility in measuring left ventricular (LV) myocardial stiffness in volunteers throughout the cardiac cycle using MR elastography (MRE) and to determine its correlation with age. Methods Cardiac MRE (CMRE) was performed on 29 normal volunteers, with ages ranging from 21 to 73 years. For assessing reproducibility of CMRE-derived stiffness measurements, scans were repeated per volunteer. Wave images were acquired throughout the LV myocardium, and were analyzed to obtain mean stiffness during the cardiac cycle. CMRE-derived stiffness values were correlated to age. Results Concordance correlation coefficient revealed good interscan agreement with rc of 0.77, with P-value