Myocardial Oedema in Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI)

Despite recent improvements in treatment, myocardial infarction (heart attack) is still a leading cause of illness and death in the UK. Following the acute event, it is difficult to predict which patients are at risk of further problems, such as heart failure and is therefore difficult to know which patients need more aggressive/intensive treatment and monitoring. There needs to be a test which is safe, reliable and reproducible that can be used shortly after a heart attack to both predict future cardiac events and to allow the efficacy of new treatments to be assessed. Myocardial oedema (swelling of the heart muscle) has been demonstrated using Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR), to occur following a heart attack and has been suggested as a marker for future cardiac events. The optimum time to perform this scan, the method of data analysis and it's effectiveness as a predictor of future cardiac events has not been adequately assessed. This trial will assess the amount and natural time-course of oedema in the first 10 days following a heart attack. It will also correlate the amount of oedema with the size of scar (damaged heart muscle) and left ventricular ejection fraction (heart function) at 3 months to assess if it is a predictive marker.