CMR has emerged to one of the most powerful diagnostic tools for the assessment of heart disease. This includes the quantitative assessment of shape, volume, mass, morphology and function of the heart. CMR is considered the gold standard for these parameters. Moreover, dynamic contrast agent studies can be used to assess regional abnormalities of blood supply (perfusion) during normal conditions and under stimulation of blood flow.
As a unique feature, CMR can also better visualize even small abnormalities in the myocardial (heart muscle) tissue than any other imaging technique. This includes inflammatory areas, scars from previous events and infiltration of the tissue. Typically, the verification of such abnormalities allows for establishing the diagnosis from this scan. Because the assessment of all these markers can be done in a single scan, CMR studies are very efficient and help saving cost. This technique does not have any known persisting side effects. It is non-invasive and does not use radiation or radioactive material. CMR therefore is considered an extremely safe technique.
Isabelle Cloutier, Ph.D.
Dr Cloutier has completed her master and Ph.D degrees in immunology at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal in the laboratory of Dr R. Sekaly, in affiliation with the department of microbiology and immunology, faculty of medicine at the university of Montreal. Afterward, she has conducted her post-doctoral work in immunology and virology at the university hospital center of Zurich, Switzerland, in the laboratory of Pr. R Zinkernagel focusing on the pathogenesis of persistent viral infection.
Dr Cloutier was then recruited in the biotechnology industry where she worked in scientific positions with supervision responsibilities in research and development teams. In January 2004, Dr. Cloutier joined the research team of experimental interventional cardiology lead by Dr. J.-F. Tanguay at the Montreal Heart Institute. Manager of the fundamental research program, she has significantly contributed to the expansion of the research projects on vascular diseases and healing processes including the development of an expertise on progenitor cells. Since mid-2012, Dr. Cloutier joined the CMR-research group as the coordinator of research projects. Her experience in complex task management in in the industry and academic research environments represents an asset in the coordination of major clinical studies.
Dr Cloutier is a member of the American Heart Association since 2004. She is a reviewer for J. Endocrinology and Stem Cell and Development since 2007 and for Langmuir since 2010. She has contributed to 20 scientific articles and reviews.
Lucio Bastan
Born in Argentina in the city of Mendoza, M. Bastan arrived in Canada in 1990. Technologist in petrochemistry from the polytechnic school of Mendoza (Argentina), he has redirected his career and has completed a training as a radiodiagnostic technologist at the college Ahuntsic.
Since graduating in 2005, M. Bastan work at the Montreal Heat Institute (MHI). In 2005 after 5 years in the team of Peripheral Angioradiology, he joined the team of cardiovascular MRI with the installation of the first MRI room at the MHI. He is a member of the Cardiac Echography technical team since 10 years and he is also a PACS manager.
Cédric Lavoie
Cédric Lavoie est technologue en imagerie médicale spécialisé en IRM. Gradué en 2002 du collège Ahuntsic, il fait le saut à l'Institut de Cadiologie de Montréal. Il a eu l’opportunité de travailler dans différents secteurs tels que l'hémodynamie, l'angiographie pour finalement s'installer en résonance magnétique depuis 2005. Technologie pleine d'avenir, c'est ce qui a attiré Cédric.
Kady Fischer, BSc
Kady currently is a master’s student in the biomedical sciences at the Université de Montréal focusing the thesis on blood oxygen level dependent Cardiovascular MRI. Prior to moving to Montréal, Kady graduated from the Health Science program at the University of Calgary majoring in biomedical sciences. For her undergraduate honours thesis, she spent 10 months at the Stephenson Cardiovascular MR Centre researching BOLD-CMR in a 1.5T.
Kady comes from the prairies and the Rockies of Southern Alberta and enjoys everything hockey.
E-mail: kady.fischer@mhi-rc.org
François Marcotte, MD, FRCP
Cardiologist
Dr. François Marcotte is a non-invasive adult congenital cardiologist who graduated from the University of Montreal. He trained in cardiology at McGill University and then in echocardiography at the University of Montreal followed by training in adult congenital heart disease and echocardiography at the University of Toronto.
During his twelve-year practice in McGill University (1990-2002) he studied cardiac magnetic resonance imaging in 1999-2000 at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and then at the University of Toronto in 2000-2001. Since September 2002, he joined the Non-invasive Cardiology Service and the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Center at the Montreal Heart Institute. He has been actively involved in teaching congenital heart disease, echocardiography and cardiac MRI to cardiology and radiology fellows and was named Montreal Heart Institute teacher of the year in 2007, 2009 & 2010.
His publications and research interests include imaging of congenital and acquired heart disease by echocardiography and MRI, rehabilitation in adults with congenital heart disease and in medical ethics and palliative care in general cardiology.
E-mail: francois.marcotte@icm-mhi.org
François-Pierre Mongeon, MD, MSc
Cardiologist
Dr. Mongeon is a non-invasive adult congenital cardiologist. He trained in cardiology at University of Montreal and in adult congenital heart disease and echocardiography at Mayo Clinic. He then went on to study cardiac magnetic resonance imaging at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston.
Dr. Mongeon also completed a Master’s Degree in Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2012. Since February 2011, he joined the Non-invasive Cardiology Division and the Adult Congenital Heart Center at Montreal Heart Institute. He is actively involved in teaching cardiac MRI and biostatistics to cardiology fellows.
His research interests include imaging of congenital and acquired heart disease by echocardiography and MRI, outcomes in adults with congenital heart disease and clinical epidemiology.
Gobinath Nadeshalingam, BSc
Gobinath (Gobi) is graduate student completing a master’s degree in biomedical sciences at the Université de Montréal. He completed his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Waterloo in Honours Biology. His interests in the field of cardiovascular physiology led him to pursue his current graduate research in blood-oxygen level dependent cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging, under the supervision of Dr. Matthias Friedrich.
Gobi is avid fan of the NFL and extremely hard to contact on Sundays during football season.
E-mail: gobi.nadeshalingam@mhi-rc.org
Jean-François Tanguay, MD, FRCP, FACC, FAHA, FESC
Cardiologist
Dr. Jean-François Tanguay received his M.D. degree from the Université de Montréal School of Medicine, where he completed his internship, internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship. After an interventional fellowship at the Montreal Heart Institute, he trained at Duke University Medical Center in the Interventional Cardiology Program. He is Director of the Experimental Interventional Cardiology Laboratory at the Montreal Heart Institute.
He has authored an co-authored more than 300 scientific publications, abstracts and books chapters. His current research interests focus on improving vascular healing, stabilizing vulnerable plaque and reducing restenosis.
E-mail: jean-francois.tanguay@icm-mhi.org
The cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) research team are researching novel ways to diagnose heart disease. Their images visualize the heart muscle and its structure using magnetic fields only. The results, including 3D-images of the beating heart allow for the early detection of acute and chronic cardiac disorders in a yet unknown precision. The Montreal Heart Institute has the first dedicated heart scanner using the state-of-the-art field strength of 3T. Using a technique, which was pioneered by Dr. Friedrich, the group is using CMR to visualize edema (cellular and extracellular swelling) of the myocardium.
Furthermore, the group investigates new markers for outcome in patients derived from CMR functional studies. As a very ambitious project, the team is also working on using oxygenation of the myocardium (derived from CMR images) to better understand the regulation of oxygen in heart disease. Furthermore, the group investigates new markers for outcome in patients derived from CMR functional studies. The research group is also involved in the lead of several national and international initiatives to test the clinical applicability of new CMR protocols, especially using non-contrast techniques to visualize early markers of heart disease.
1. Eitel I, von Knobelsdorff-Brenkenhoff F, Bernhardt P, Carbone I, Muellerleile K,
Aldrovandi A, Francone M, Desch S, Gutberlet M, Strohm O, Schuler G, Schulz-Menger
J, Thiele H*, Friedrich MG*. Clinical Characteristics and Cardiovascular Magnetic
Resonance Findings in Stress (Takotsubo) Cardiomyopathy: A Multicenter Series in
Europe and North America. JAMA 2011;306(3):277-286.
2. Cocker MS, Shea SM, Strohm O, Green J, Abdel-Aty H, Friedrich MG. A New
approach towards improved visualization of myocardial edema using T2-weighted
imaging: A cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) study. J Magn Reson Imaging
2011;34(2):286–292.
3. Jeserich M, Friedrich MG, Olschewski M, Kirchberger J, Kimball S, Bode C, Geibel A.
Evidence for non-ischemic scarring in patients with ventricular ectopy. Int J Cardiol
2011;147(3):482–484.
4. Childs H, Ma L, Ma M, Clarke J, Cocker MS, Green J, Strohm O, Friedrich MG. Long
Axis vs. Short Axis Quantification of Left Ventricular Parameters by Cardiovascular MR
With Ex Vivo Validation. J Cardiovascular Magn Res 2011;13:40.
(BMC highly accessed paper)
5. Beaudin AE, Brugniaux JV, Vohringer M, Flewitt J, Green JD, Friedrich MG, Poulin
MJ. Cerebral and myocardial blood flow responses to hypercapnia and hypoxia in
humans. Am J Physiol - Heart Circ Physiol. 2011 Oct.;301(4):H1678–86.
6. Jeserich M, Friedrich MG, Olschewski M, Kimball S, Föll D, Bode C, Geibel A. Clinical
and Functional Correlates of Myocardial Fibrosis in Dilated Cardiomyopathy. J Clinic
Experiment Cardiol 2011;2:9.
7. Kumar A, Beohar N, Arumana JM, Larose E, Li D, Friedrich MG, Dharmakumar R.
CMR Imaging of Edema in Myocardial Infarction Using Cine Balanced Steady-State Free
Precession. J Am Coll Cardiol: CV Img 2011;4:1265-73 (highlighted in Cardiosource
Video News).
8. Kumar A, Green JD, Sykes JM, Ephram P, Carson JJL, Mitchell AJ, Wisenberg G,
Friedrich MG. Detection and Quantification of Myocardial Reperfusion Hemorrhage
Using T2*-Weighted Cardiac Magnetic Resonance: In vivo/Ex vivo Validation in
Canines. J Am Coll Cardiol: CV Img 2011;4:1274-83 (highlighted in Cardiosource Video
News).
9. Jeserich M, Föll D, Olschewski M, Kimball S, Friedrich MG, Bode C, Geibel A.
Evidence of myocardial edema in patients with non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy.
Clin Cardiol 2012.
10. Jeserich M, Brunner E, Kandolf R, Olschewski M, Kimball S, Friedrich MG, Föll D,
Bode C, Geibel A. Diagnosis of Viral Myocarditis by Cardiac Magnetic Resonance and
Viral Genome Detection in Peripheral Blood. Int J Cardiovasc Imaging 2012.
11. Ferreira VM, Piechnik SK, Dall'Armellina E, Karamitsos TD, Francis JM, Choudhury
RP, Friedrich MG, Robson MD, Neubauer S. Non-contrast T1-mapping detects acute
myocardial edema with high diagnostic accuracy: a comparison to T2-weighted
cardiovascular magnetic resonance. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson. 2012; 14:42. (BMC
highly accessed paper)
12. Vermes E, Carbone I, Friedrich MG, Merchant N. Patterns of myocardial late
enhancement: Typical and atypical features. Archives of Cardiovascular Diseases.
2012; 105:300–308.
13. Vermes E, Childs H, Carbone I, Barckow P, Friedrich MG. Automatic Quantification
of Late Gd Enhancement in Patients with Acute Heart Disease. J Magn Res Imaging, in
press.
14. Friedrich MG, Larose E, Patton D, Dick AJ, Merchant N, Paterson I. Canadian
Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (Can SCMR) Recommendations for
Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Image Analysis and Reporting. Can J Cardiol, in
press.
Raymonde Pelletier
Administrative assistant
raymonde.pelletier@icm-mhi.org
Team members
Isabelle Cloutier, Ph.D.
Dr Cloutier has completed her master and Ph.D degrees in immunology at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal in the laboratory of Dr R. Sekaly, in affiliation with the department of microbiology and immunology, faculty of medicine at the university of Montreal. Afterward, she has conducted her post-doctoral work in immunology and virology at the university hospital center of Zurich, Switzerland, in the laboratory of Pr. R Zinkernagel focusing on the pathogenesis of persistent viral infection.
Dr Cloutier was then recruited in the biotechnology industry where she worked in scientific positions with supervision responsibilities in research and development teams. In January 2004, Dr. Cloutier joined the research team of experimental interventional cardiology lead by Dr. J.-F. Tanguay at the Montreal Heart Institute. Manager of the fundamental research program, she has significantly contributed to the expansion of the research projects on vascular diseases and healing processes including the development of an expertise on progenitor cells. Since mid-2012, Dr. Cloutier joined the CMR-research group as the coordinator of research projects. Her experience in complex task management in in the industry and academic research environments represents an asset in the coordination of major clinical studies.
Dr Cloutier is a member of the American Heart Association since 2004. She is a reviewer for J. Endocrinology and Stem Cell and Development since 2007 and for Langmuir since 2010. She has contributed to 20 scientific articles and reviews.
Lucio Bastan
Born in Argentina in the city of Mendoza, M. Bastan arrived in Canada in 1990. Technologist in petrochemistry from the polytechnic school of Mendoza (Argentina), he has redirected his career and has completed a training as a radiodiagnostic technologist at the college Ahuntsic.
Since graduating in 2005, M. Bastan work at the Montreal Heat Institute (MHI). In 2005 after 5 years in the team of Peripheral Angioradiology, he joined the team of cardiovascular MRI with the installation of the first MRI room at the MHI. He is a member of the Cardiac Echography technical team since 10 years and he is also a PACS manager.
Cédric Lavoie
Cédric Lavoie est technologue en imagerie médicale spécialisé en IRM. Gradué en 2002 du collège Ahuntsic, il fait le saut à l'Institut de Cadiologie de Montréal. Il a eu l’opportunité de travailler dans différents secteurs tels que l'hémodynamie, l'angiographie pour finalement s'installer en résonance magnétique depuis 2005. Technologie pleine d'avenir, c'est ce qui a attiré Cédric.
Kady Fischer, BSc
Kady currently is a master’s student in the biomedical sciences at the Université de Montréal focusing the thesis on blood oxygen level dependent Cardiovascular MRI. Prior to moving to Montréal, Kady graduated from the Health Science program at the University of Calgary majoring in biomedical sciences. For her undergraduate honours thesis, she spent 10 months at the Stephenson Cardiovascular MR Centre researching BOLD-CMR in a 1.5T.
Kady comes from the prairies and the Rockies of Southern Alberta and enjoys everything hockey.
E-mail: kady.fischer@mhi-rc.org
François Marcotte, MD, FRCP
Cardiologist
Dr. François Marcotte is a non-invasive adult congenital cardiologist who graduated from the University of Montreal. He trained in cardiology at McGill University and then in echocardiography at the University of Montreal followed by training in adult congenital heart disease and echocardiography at the University of Toronto.
During his twelve-year practice in McGill University (1990-2002) he studied cardiac magnetic resonance imaging in 1999-2000 at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and then at the University of Toronto in 2000-2001. Since September 2002, he joined the Non-invasive Cardiology Service and the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Center at the Montreal Heart Institute. He has been actively involved in teaching congenital heart disease, echocardiography and cardiac MRI to cardiology and radiology fellows and was named Montreal Heart Institute teacher of the year in 2007, 2009 & 2010.
His publications and research interests include imaging of congenital and acquired heart disease by echocardiography and MRI, rehabilitation in adults with congenital heart disease and in medical ethics and palliative care in general cardiology.
E-mail: francois.marcotte@icm-mhi.org
François-Pierre Mongeon, MD, MSc
Cardiologist
Dr. Mongeon is a non-invasive adult congenital cardiologist. He trained in cardiology at University of Montreal and in adult congenital heart disease and echocardiography at Mayo Clinic. He then went on to study cardiac magnetic resonance imaging at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital Boston.
Dr. Mongeon also completed a Master’s Degree in Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2012. Since February 2011, he joined the Non-invasive Cardiology Division and the Adult Congenital Heart Center at Montreal Heart Institute. He is actively involved in teaching cardiac MRI and biostatistics to cardiology fellows.
His research interests include imaging of congenital and acquired heart disease by echocardiography and MRI, outcomes in adults with congenital heart disease and clinical epidemiology.
Gobinath Nadeshalingam, BSc
Gobinath (Gobi) is graduate student completing a master’s degree in biomedical sciences at the Université de Montréal. He completed his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Waterloo in Honours Biology. His interests in the field of cardiovascular physiology led him to pursue his current graduate research in blood-oxygen level dependent cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging, under the supervision of Dr. Matthias Friedrich.
Gobi is avid fan of the NFL and extremely hard to contact on Sundays during football season.
E-mail: gobi.nadeshalingam@mhi-rc.org
Jean-François Tanguay, MD, FRCP, FACC, FAHA, FESC
Cardiologist
Dr. Jean-François Tanguay received his M.D. degree from the Université de Montréal School of Medicine, where he completed his internship, internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship. After an interventional fellowship at the Montreal Heart Institute, he trained at Duke University Medical Center in the Interventional Cardiology Program. He is Director of the Experimental Interventional Cardiology Laboratory at the Montreal Heart Institute.
He has authored an co-authored more than 300 scientific publications, abstracts and books chapters. His current research interests focus on improving vascular healing, stabilizing vulnerable plaque and reducing restenosis.
E-mail: jean-francois.tanguay@icm-mhi.org
Research projects
The cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) research team are researching novel ways to diagnose heart disease. Their images visualize the heart muscle and its structure using magnetic fields only. The results, including 3D-images of the beating heart allow for the early detection of acute and chronic cardiac disorders in a yet unknown precision. The Montreal Heart Institute has the first dedicated heart scanner using the state-of-the-art field strength of 3T. Using a technique, which was pioneered by Dr. Friedrich, the group is using CMR to visualize edema (cellular and extracellular swelling) of the myocardium.
Furthermore, the group investigates new markers for outcome in patients derived from CMR functional studies. As a very ambitious project, the team is also working on using oxygenation of the myocardium (derived from CMR images) to better understand the regulation of oxygen in heart disease. Furthermore, the group investigates new markers for outcome in patients derived from CMR functional studies. The research group is also involved in the lead of several national and international initiatives to test the clinical applicability of new CMR protocols, especially using non-contrast techniques to visualize early markers of heart disease.
Publications
1. Eitel I, von Knobelsdorff-Brenkenhoff F, Bernhardt P, Carbone I, Muellerleile K,
Aldrovandi A, Francone M, Desch S, Gutberlet M, Strohm O, Schuler G, Schulz-Menger
J, Thiele H*, Friedrich MG*. Clinical Characteristics and Cardiovascular Magnetic
Resonance Findings in Stress (Takotsubo) Cardiomyopathy: A Multicenter Series in
Europe and North America. JAMA 2011;306(3):277-286.
2. Cocker MS, Shea SM, Strohm O, Green J, Abdel-Aty H, Friedrich MG. A New
approach towards improved visualization of myocardial edema using T2-weighted
imaging: A cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) study. J Magn Reson Imaging
2011;34(2):286–292.
3. Jeserich M, Friedrich MG, Olschewski M, Kirchberger J, Kimball S, Bode C, Geibel A.
Evidence for non-ischemic scarring in patients with ventricular ectopy. Int J Cardiol
2011;147(3):482–484.
4. Childs H, Ma L, Ma M, Clarke J, Cocker MS, Green J, Strohm O, Friedrich MG. Long
Axis vs. Short Axis Quantification of Left Ventricular Parameters by Cardiovascular MR
With Ex Vivo Validation. J Cardiovascular Magn Res 2011;13:40.
(BMC highly accessed paper)
5. Beaudin AE, Brugniaux JV, Vohringer M, Flewitt J, Green JD, Friedrich MG, Poulin
MJ. Cerebral and myocardial blood flow responses to hypercapnia and hypoxia in
humans. Am J Physiol - Heart Circ Physiol. 2011 Oct.;301(4):H1678–86.
6. Jeserich M, Friedrich MG, Olschewski M, Kimball S, Föll D, Bode C, Geibel A. Clinical
and Functional Correlates of Myocardial Fibrosis in Dilated Cardiomyopathy. J Clinic
Experiment Cardiol 2011;2:9.
7. Kumar A, Beohar N, Arumana JM, Larose E, Li D, Friedrich MG, Dharmakumar R.
CMR Imaging of Edema in Myocardial Infarction Using Cine Balanced Steady-State Free
Precession. J Am Coll Cardiol: CV Img 2011;4:1265-73 (highlighted in Cardiosource
Video News).
8. Kumar A, Green JD, Sykes JM, Ephram P, Carson JJL, Mitchell AJ, Wisenberg G,
Friedrich MG. Detection and Quantification of Myocardial Reperfusion Hemorrhage
Using T2*-Weighted Cardiac Magnetic Resonance: In vivo/Ex vivo Validation in
Canines. J Am Coll Cardiol: CV Img 2011;4:1274-83 (highlighted in Cardiosource Video
News).
9. Jeserich M, Föll D, Olschewski M, Kimball S, Friedrich MG, Bode C, Geibel A.
Evidence of myocardial edema in patients with non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy.
Clin Cardiol 2012.
10. Jeserich M, Brunner E, Kandolf R, Olschewski M, Kimball S, Friedrich MG, Föll D,
Bode C, Geibel A. Diagnosis of Viral Myocarditis by Cardiac Magnetic Resonance and
Viral Genome Detection in Peripheral Blood. Int J Cardiovasc Imaging 2012.
11. Ferreira VM, Piechnik SK, Dall'Armellina E, Karamitsos TD, Francis JM, Choudhury
RP, Friedrich MG, Robson MD, Neubauer S. Non-contrast T1-mapping detects acute
myocardial edema with high diagnostic accuracy: a comparison to T2-weighted
cardiovascular magnetic resonance. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson. 2012; 14:42. (BMC
highly accessed paper)
12. Vermes E, Carbone I, Friedrich MG, Merchant N. Patterns of myocardial late
enhancement: Typical and atypical features. Archives of Cardiovascular Diseases.
2012; 105:300–308.
13. Vermes E, Childs H, Carbone I, Barckow P, Friedrich MG. Automatic Quantification
of Late Gd Enhancement in Patients with Acute Heart Disease. J Magn Res Imaging, in
press.
14. Friedrich MG, Larose E, Patton D, Dick AJ, Merchant N, Paterson I. Canadian
Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (Can SCMR) Recommendations for
Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Image Analysis and Reporting. Can J Cardiol, in
press.
Contact
Raymonde Pelletier
Administrative assistant
raymonde.pelletier@icm-mhi.org