Researchers from King’s College London (KCL) have investigated a new technique for diagnosing and evaluating multiple cardiac conditions that involve excess iron.

The new technique, cardiac quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), was used to investigate the build-up of excess iron.

With most serious heart attacks, the potential for blood to leak into the heart muscle is more likely and can form iron deposits that can lead to heart failure.

Despite existing methods for detecting iron build-up in the heart, a variety of other conditions that are associated with heart attacks can affect these methods.

Published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, researchers assessed the accuracy of QSM with a purpose-built susceptibility phantom that contained tubes with a range of gadolinium concentrations, clear, colourless fluid used to make images clearer during an MRI scan.

Researchers then tested QSM in ten healthy volunteers and five patients with an ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction and suspected intramyocardial haemorrhage to detect regions of increased susceptibility and iron in vivo.

Results showed that QSM was successfully able to visualise iron deposits and has the potential to improve diagnosis by reducing sensitivity to other conditions.

Dr Andrew Tyer, research association, KCL’s School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Science, said: “This work takes an important step towards translating QSM to the clinic by characterising its performance in the heart in healthy controls and patients before demonstrating the detection of these iron deposits in patients with heart attacks.”

Dr Pier Giorgio Masci, consultant cardiologist at KCL, added: “This technique will pave the avenue for a more comprehensive, fully quantitative investigation of the ischaemia-reperfusion damage in patients who have suffered a severe heart attack, known as an ST-segment-elevation myocardial infarction.”

Researchers suggest further clinical evaluation of the new technique before it can be used in healthcare.

Researchers from McMaster University and the pharmaceutical company ALK-Abello have discovered a new type of cell that remembers allergies.

Published in Science Translational Medicine, the new discovery could lead to new immunotherapies to treat allergies.

B cells are a type of immune cell that produces antibodies that help fight off infections. However, they can also cause allergies, a common chronic disease.

The new cell, type-2 memory B cell (MBC2), contains “unique characteristics and a unique gene signature that has not been described before,” explained Josh Koenig, assistant professor, department of medicine, McMaster University.

Because of this cell, the immune system will remember the allergy and will create more of the antibodies that make the body allergic the more it encounters it.

Researchers created tetramers, a fluorescent molecule, using allergens including birch pollen and peanuts to locate difficult-to-find memory B cells.

The team then further leveraged samples gathered from ALK clinical trials with tablet sublingual immunotherapy, which allows for sequencing large amounts of IgE, a type of antibody that triggers allergic reactions and produces B cells.

Koenig said: “We found allergic people had this memory B cell against their allergen, but non-allergic people had very few, if any.”

Researchers were able to discover a connection between MBC2 and IgE using cutting-edge technology, including single-cell transcriptomics and deep sequencing of antibody gene repertoires on clinical trial samples, to reveal the source of the allergy in MBC2.