Assessment of coronary heart disease with carbon dioxide
AssigneeCedars-Sinai Medical Center
InventorsRohan Dharmakumar, Debiao Li, Sotirios A. Tsaftaris
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Abstract
The invention provides methods for diagnosing coronary heart disease in a subject in need thereof comprising administering an admixture comprising CO2 to a subject to reach a predetermined PaCO2 in the subject to induce hyperemia, monitoring vascular reactivity in the subject and diagnosing the presence or absence of coronary heart disease in the subject, wherein decreased vascular reactivity in the subject compared to a control subject is indicative of coronary heart disease. The invention also provides methods for increasing sensitivity and specificity of BOLD MRI.
Claims21
A method of producing coronary vasodilation and monitoring vascular reactivity in a subject comprising:
- (a) administering an admixture comprising carbon dioxide (CO2) to attain two or more predetermined arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide (PaCO2) levels within a range from 20 mmHg to 65 mmHg in the subject,
- wherein at least two of the two or more predetermined PaCO2 levels exhibit an increase of at least 20 mmHg within the range from 20 mmHg to 65 mmHg and correspond to an increase in CO2 concentration in the administered admixture and/or an increase in length of time of the administered admixture, such that a hyperemic response in the subject's myocardium is induced due to the increase in the PaCO2 level, and
- wherein the admixture is administered for at least one minute to maintain each of the at least two of the two or more predetermined PaCO2 levels;
- (b) imaging the subject's myocardium at each respective maintained level of the at least two of the two or more predetermined PaCO2 levels to obtain respective images corresponding to the increase in the PaCO2 level;
- and
- (c) quantifying vascular reactivity from the respective images, wherein images obtained at the predetermined PaCO2 level corresponding to the hyperemic response identify a region of the myocardium in which the vascular reactivity is impaired in individuals with coronary heart disease.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.