Myocardial fibrosis evaluated by diffusion‐weighted imaging and its relationship to 3D contractile function in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Background Previous studies have shown that diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI) is sensitive to myocardial fibrosis in ischemic and nonischemic cardiomyopathy. Purpose To explore the prognostic value of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) for detecting myocardial fibrosis and its relationship to the contractile function in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Study Type Prospective. Population A total of 45 HCM patients and 20 controls. Field Strength/Sequence 3.0T cardiac MRI. The cardiac MR sequences included cine, T1 mapping, and DWI. Assessment According to the presence of late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) and the extracellular volume (ECV) values (+2 SD of control subjects), respectively, reader W and reader J assessed the value of ADC of each segment for detecting myocardial fibrosis and its relationship to impaired contractile function in HCM patients. Statistical Tests Independent sample t‐test, Pearson analysis, and intraclass correlation (ICC). Results The value of ECV was 23.6 ± 3.0% for control. ECV ≥ 29.6% and ECV