Using active imaging to find ‘hidden’ heart conditions
Currently MRIs for heart disease only look at the heart under resting conditions, with patients lying down in the machine and remaining completely still. While this technique has been critical in identifying thousands of heart conditions, Dr Wendy Strugnell and her team believe we can do better – and possibly begin to identify heart conditions that would otherwise go unnoticed.
In this innovative study, getting patients to ride a bike while inside the MRI machine, Dr Strugnell hopes to highlight and identify a range of heart diseases that rear their ugly heads only when a patient is active.
If successful this new diagnosis tool could be used throughout Australia and throughout the world to identify heart diseases that may otherwise go unnoticed until it was too late.
Our amazing volunteers here at The Prince Charles Hospital are affectionately known as "Charlie's Angels" - you can't miss them in their brilliant yellow shirts!