Quality assessment of cardiac magnetic resonance myocardial scar imaging prior to ventricular arrhythmia ablation.

High-resolution scar characterization using late gadolinium enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (LGE-CMR) is useful for guiding ventricular arrhythmia (VA) treatment. However, imaging study quality may be degraded by breath-holding difficulties, arrhythmias, and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs). We evaluated the effect of image quality on left ventricle (LV) base to apex scar interpretation in pre-VA ablation LGE-CMR. 43 consecutive patients referred for VA ablation underwent gradient-recalled-echo LGE-CMR. In ICD patients (n = 24), wide-bandwidth inversion-recovery suppressed ICD artifacts. In non-ICD patients, single-shot steady-state free-precession LGE-CMR could also be performed to reduce respiratory motion/arrhythmia artifacts. Study quality was assessed for adequate/limited scar interpretation due to cardiac/respiratory motion artifacts, ICD-related artifacts, and image contrast. 28% of non-ICD patients had studies where image quality limited scar interpretation in at least one image compared to 71% of ICD patient studies (p = 0.012). A median of five image slices had limited quality per ICD patient study, compared to 0 images per non-ICD patient study. Poorer quality in ICD patients was largely due to motion-related artifacts (54% ICD vs 6% non-ICD studies, p = 0.001) as well as ICD-related image artifacts (25% of studies). In VA ablation patients with ICDs, conventional CMR protocols frequently have image slices with limited scar interpretation, which can limit whole-heart scar assessment. Motion artifacts contribute to suboptimal image quality, particularly in ICD patients. Improved methods for motion and ICD artifact suppression may better delineate high-resolution LGE scar features of interest for guiding VA ablation.

ModelHeart: a resident-led implementation of metrics to reduce 30-day heart failure readmissions.

Hospitals have been penalised for excessive 30-day readmissions via Medicare payment penalties. As such there has been keen interest in finding ways of reducing readmissions. The basis for the study was a retrospective review of heart failure (HF) admissions at Cleveland Clinic Florida from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2010. The result of this was a set of metrics associated with >30 day span between admissions: N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide by at least 23%, fluid balance of ≤-1.3 L and sodium ≥135 mEq/L on discharge. The ModelHeart trial was a prospective resident-led validation of these criteria that consisted of education about and implementation of these metrics. A total of 200 patients carrying a diagnosis of HF, admitted between 1 November 2012 and 14 January 2014 were included in the trial. Of the 200 enrolled patients, 94% of discharged patients met at least one criteria, 58% met at least two criteria and 20% met all three. There were forty-eight all-cause 30-day readmissions. 30-day readmission rates between themore than equal to two criteria cohort and the remaining patients were not significantly different (p=0.71). Overall readmission rates were higher in the 2011-2012 retrospective patient pool (19%) versus the ModelHeart cohort (11%), and proportional differences were significant, (p<0.001). This may suggest that education provided sufficient awareness to alter discharge practices outside of the measured metrics. However, the lack of significant differences between groups with respect to discharge metrics suggests that further study is needed to refine the metrics and that reducing HF readmissions involves a continuum of care that spans the inpatient and outpatient setting.