Faculty Awards & Recognitions

UCLA MRI Core Lab Awarded a 2.6 Million Dollar Grant

UCLA MRI Core Lab to Service Multi-Center DETERMINE Trial in Patients with Myocardial Infarct

A 2.6 million dollar grant has been awarded to the UCLA Radiology MRI Core Lab to service the multi-center DETERMINE trial. DETERMINE (DEfibrillators To REduce Risk by MagnetIc ResoNance Imaging Evaluation) seeks to define which patients with ischemic heart failure will benefit from treatment with implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICD), based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging criteria. The trial is sponsored by St. Jude Medical, and is administered by Northwestern University, under the direction of Alan Kadish, MD.

Up to 10,000 patients will undergo cardiac MRI at nearly 100 participating centers nationwide, over the course of three years. These cardiac MRI studies will be analyzed in the MRI Core Laboratory for quantification of myocardial infarct size and evaluation of functional left ventricular parameters. The larger the infarct size, the worse the prognosis; it is anticipated that patients with larger infarcts as measured by MRI, and moderately impaired left ventricular function, may be more responsive to ICD therapy.

Under the direction of Dr. Paul Finn, the MRI Core Lab offers a range of services that include

• Assistance & consultation on developing MRI protocols
• Performance of qualitative & quantitative image analysis
• Provision of secure & efficient data archival & access, and
• Training on image acquisition procedures

In the future, the MRI Core Lab aims to offer real-time, online assistance to participating field centers via 'Remote Scanning' technology currently under development. The feasibility of performing clinical MRI scans by remote control has already been established by researchers in the Radiology department at UCLA.