An investigation into potential gender-specific differences in myocardial triglyceride content assessed by 1H-Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy at 3Tesla

Objective: Over the past decade, myocardial triglyceride content has become an accepted biomarker for chronic metabolic and cardiac disease. The purpose of this study was to use proton (hydrogen 1)-magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS) at 3Tesla (3 T) field strength to assess potential gender-related differences in myocardial triglyceride content in healthy individuals.

Methods: Cardiac MR imaging was performed to enable accurate voxel placement and obtain functional and morphological information. Double triggered (i.e., ECG and respiratory motion gating) (1)H-MRS was used to quantify myocardial triglyceride levels for each gender. Two-sample t-test and Mann-Whitney U-test were used for statistical analyses.

Results: In total, 40 healthy volunteers (22 male, 18 female; aged >18 years and age matched) were included in the study. Median myocardial triglyceride content was 0.28% (interquartile range [IQR] 0.17-0.42%) in male and 0.24% (IQR 0.14-0.45%) in female participants, and no statistically significant difference was observed between the genders. Furthermore, no gender-specific difference in ejection fraction was observed, although on average, male participants presented with a higher mean ± SD left ventricular mass (136.3 ± 25.2 g) than female participants (103.9 ± 16.1 g).

Conclusions: The study showed that (1)H-MRS is a capable, noninvasive tool for acquisition of myocardial triglyceride metabolites. Myocardial triglyceride concentration was shown to be unrelated to gender in this group of healthy volunteers.