MAGNETIC-RESONANCE MAPPING DEMONSTRATES BENEFITS OF VEGF INDUCED MYOCARDIAL ANGIOGENESIS

Coronary occlusive disease is the leading cause of death in industrial nations and affects one in four adults. Although heart. attacks are c aused by occlusion of a coronary artery, some patients have occlusions without infarction because they have sufficient collateral vessels pr oviding an alternate pathway for blood supply. Vascular endothelial gr owth factor (VEGF) is an angiogenic peptide that can stimulate collate ral vessel development in the ischaemic myocardium(1-6). We used magne tic resonance imaging (MRI) and image processing to identify and quant ify non-invasively the benefits related to VEGF infusion on collateral development in the heart. This was accomplished as a placebo-controll ed study in the porcine model of chronic ischaemia(7,8) that most clos ely mimics the human pathophysiology of progressive coronary occlusion (9). Image series converted to a space-time map demonstrated that with treatment the ischaemic zone was smaller and the contrast arrival del ay was less, which resulted in better ejection fraction and regional w all thickening, These findings demonstrate in a manner applicable to h umans, that VEGF improves collateral blood supply, resulting in improv ed cardiac global and regional function after and in spite of coronary artery occlusion.