Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging study assessing myocardial ischemia in patients with end-stage renal disease and renal transplant - post renal transplant cohort

This project is designed to assess myocardial ischemia in various populations of patients with renal disease. These cohorts of patients have significant cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. It is believed that apart from epicardial coronary disease, they also have microvascular or small vessel ischemia. Dialysis is thought to be a major contributor in acceleration of their cardiovascular disease, however even after renal transplantation, there cardiovascular morbidity and mortality does not mirror the general population. We are going to assess myocardial ischemia using cardiac MRI and blood oxygen level dependent imaging. This uses intrinsic contrast of deoxy-hemoglobin to assess ischemia. We are going to assess it in patients on dialysis regardless of their cardiovascular symptoms as this group of patients have significant disease despite lack of traditional cardiac symptoms. We are also going to look at patients being evaluated for renal transplant. In this population, we can directly compare this relatively new technique with traditional method of ischemia assessment. We believe this technique will provided added information to already existing imaging modalities as it looks at oxygenation of the myocardium, which precedes development of ischemia. Our third cohort, evaluates patients after their renal transplant, examining markers that may predict cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in this group. This trial is the post transplant cohort and is linked to trial ACTRN12611000786998 and ACTRN12611000785909