Utilizing a novel contrast agent during MRI exams may increase patients’ odds of surviving a heart attack, according to findings published in Advanced Science.

A team of U.K.-based researchers discovered manganese-based imaging agents enhance MRI exams to afford more accurate details of heart function compared to conventional scanning. This imaging agent proved particularly useful within the first few hours of myocardial infarction, allowing researchers to regulate changes in heart muscles, the authors reported.

Already approved for clinical use during magnetic resonance imaging, manganese-enhanced exams could save many lives if the findings are confirmed in human subjects.

"Magnetic resonance imaging is increasingly used to diagnose and give information on heart conditions,” principal investigator Patrizia Camelliti, senior lecturer in Cardiovascular Science at the University of Surrey in Guildford, England, said on Tuesday. “This research using mice allows us to measure the health status of the heart muscle rapidly after a heart attack and could provide important information for optimizing treatments in patients.”

The authors confirmed their findings by analyzing infarct size and blood supply one hour, one day, and two weeks after inducing heart attacks in mice.

Camelliti and colleagues indicated manganese-enhanced MRI can overcome the many limitations of late-gadolinium-enhanced imaging, currently the “gold standard” for assessing myocardial damage.

“This method will be of great use in the preclinical evaluation of treatments that target events early in ischemic injury and reperfusion, and may offer a new biomarker for evaluating the success of reperfusion therapy,” the authors explained. “The re‐emergence of safe, clinical-grade [Maganese II]‐based contrast agents opens the possibility of direct evaluation of myocardial viability early after ischemic onset in patients with acute myocardial infarction.”

Read the full study published in April here.