US researchers have demonstrated that MRI is twice as sensitive as other techniques at detecting early heart damage in patients with the immune system disorder sarcoidosis.
The early detection of heart problems in patients with sarcoidosis is imperative if the risk of dying from heart failure is to be reduced for such patients. Sarcoidosis is characterized by tiny inflammatory growths, granulomas, that cluster in the lungs, lymph nodes and under the skin, but can also form in the heart. Conventional techniques cannot differentiate between which patients who have cardiac granulomas will suffer long-term heart damage and those who will not.
Now, caridiologists at Duke University Medical Center have shown how MRI can reveal minute areas of heart damage before they reach a critical size. The earlier diagnosis might allow physicians to reduce the incidence of sudden cardiac death, a leading cause of death in patients with sarcoidosis.
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