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  • About JDMI
Bernd J Wintersperger

Dr. Bernd J. Wintersperger, MD EBCR FAHA

Dr. Wintersperger is Professor of Radiology at the Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto and also serves as Associate Vice-Chair Research (Heart-Lung-Vessel).

He is the Director of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Co-Chair of MR Safety Commitee and Director of Cardiac Imaging Operations of the Toronto Joined Department of Medical Imaging (JDMI) at the University Health Network, Sinai Health and Women’s College Hospital in Toronto. He is also appointed as Professor of Radiology and Visiting Scientist at the Department of Radiology at the University of Munich.

Dr. Wintersperger graduated from the University of Munich, Faculty of Medicine in 1995 and received his specialty training in Radiology as well as his fellowship training at the Department of Clinical Radiology at the University of Munich. Dr. Wintersperger received his doctorate (Dr. med.) in 1998 (‘Diagnosis of pulmonary embolism in spiral CT’) and his ‘Venia Legendi’ (PD. Dr. med; Habilitation/PhD equivalent) in 2007 focusing on ‘Use of parallel imaging techniques in analysis of cardiac function using cine MRI: Technical optimization and clinical evaluation.’ He served as Section Chief General Radiology & Cardiac MRI as well as the Head of Quality Management until May 2010 when he joined the University of Toronto and the Toronto Joint Department of Medical Imaging as staff radiologist overseeing the departments cardiac imaging program.

Dr. Wintersperger is actively involved as a member of various societies including administrative positions. He has served in different capacities for the CVRI Council of the American Heart Association (AHA) and the CVRI Council leadership committee. Dr. Wintersperger has served two terms as a member of the RSNA Cardiac Scientific Subcommittee and has served as a member of the ISMRM Annual Meeting Program Committee and the SCMR Publication Committee. Currently, Dr. Wintersperger serves as a member of the ISMRM Governance Committee and the SCMR Clinical Trials Committee. He also continues to serve as a member of the educational/refresher-course faculty for the RSNA, ISMRM and other society meetings. Dr. Wintersperger is on the reviewer panel of various radiology and cardiology journals and is an Associate Editor and member of the Editorial Board for Investigative Radiology.

Dr. Wintersperger’s research interest mainly focuses on non-invasive cardiovascular CT and MR imaging with special emphasis on quantitative methods, quantitative tissue characterization and innovative accelerated imaging methods. Other aspects involve cardiovascular MRI at high-field strength (3T) and clinical applications of novel contrast agents as well as MR safety. Recent work included the development of new quantitative algorithms and new approaches in Cardiac Relaxometry. Dr. Wintersperger has >175 PubMed listed publications

Dr. Wintersperger is an avid cyclist and enjoys many weekly hours on his bike at early mornings with Morning Glory Cycling Club. He also takes any opportunity of hiking and mountaineering in the Alps when visiting back home in southern Bavaria (Germany).

Recent Publications

  • Diagnostic and Prognostic Value of Myocardial Work Indices for Identification of Cancer Therapy-Related Cardiotoxicity

    CONCLUSIONS: GLS can be used to diagnose and prognosticate cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) defined CTRCD, with additional value from MWIs in […]

  • Clinical Impact of Cardiac MRI T1 and T2 Parametric Mapping in Patients with Suspected Cardiomyopathy

    Background There are limited data on the incremental value of parametric mapping compared with core cardiac MRI protocols for suspected […]

  • A Combined Echocardiography Approach for the Diagnosis of Cancer Therapy-Related Cardiac Dysfunction in Women With Early-Stage Breast Cancer

    CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Using CMR CTRCD as the reference standard, these data suggest that a sequential approach combining echocardiographic 3-D […]

  • Immune checkpoint inhibitor-related myocarditis: an illustrative case series of applying the updated Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Lake Louise Criteria

    BACKGROUND: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have improved outcomes for many types of cancer. However, ICI therapies are associated with the […]

  • Combined Cardiac Fluorodeoxyglucose-Positron Emission Tomography/Magnetic Resonance Imaging Assessment of Myocardial Injury in Patients Who Recently Recovered From COVID-19

    CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In this study of patients recently recovered from COVID-19, myocardial inflammation was identified on PET in a small […]

  • Clinical, Echocardiographic, and Biomarker Associations With Impaired Cardiorespiratory Fitness Early After HER2-Targeted Breast Cancer Therapy

    CONCLUSIONS: Readily available clinical measures were associated with VO(2)peak early post-breast cancer therapy. A combination of these parameters […]

  • Interatrial Septal Fat Contributes to Interatrial Conduction Delay and Atrial Fibrillation Recurrence Following Ablation

    No abstract

  • Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor-Associated Myocarditis With Persistent Troponin Elevation Despite Abatacept and Prolonged Immunosuppression

    No abstract

  • Impact of Field Strength in Clinical Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging

    Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is widely applied for the noninvasive assessment of cardiac structure and function, and for tissue […]

  • Myocardial T1 and T2 Mapping by Magnetic Resonance in Patients With Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor-Associated Myocarditis

    CONCLUSIONS: The use of T1 mapping and application of the modified Lake Louise Criteria provides important diagnostic value, and T1 mapping provides […]

  • Serial Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Strain Measurements to Identify Cardiotoxicity in Breast Cancer: Comparison With Echocardiography

    CONCLUSIONS: In women with HER2+ early stage breast cancer, changes in CMR and 2DE strain, left ventricular ejection fraction, and LVESVi were […]

  • Precision-optimized single protocol pre-/post-contrast modified-look locker inversion T1 mapping using composite inversion group fitting

    CONCLUSIONS: A single optimized Composite-IG fitting protocol for pre-/post-contrast T1 mapping demonstrated improved precision over standard MOLLI […]

  • Multimodality Assessment of Thoracic Aortic Dimensions: Comparison of Computed Tomography Angiography, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and Echocardiography Measurements

    CONCLUSIONS: There is excellent agreement in thoracic aortic measurements between CT and MRI. However, TTE significantly underestimates maximum […]

  • Cardiac magnetic resonance for asymptomatic patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular high risk (CATCH): a pilot study

    CONCLUSION: 20.6% of asymptomatic DM patients (with Framingham risk ≥ 20%) had silent obstructive CAD. Furthermore, asymptomatic patients have […]

  • Diagnostic Performance of Abnormal Nulling on Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging Look Locker Inversion Time Sequence in Differentiating Cardiac Amyloidosis Types

    CONCLUSIONS: An abnormal nulling pattern on the Look Locker TI sequence is highly specific for cardiac amyloidosis when present. However, abnormal […]

  • Variability in echocardiography and MRI for detection of cancer therapy cardiotoxicity

    CONCLUSION: Temporal changes in 3D-LVEF, 2D-GLS and CMR LVEF in patients with CTRCD had the least overlap with the variability in healthy volunteers; […]

  • Cardiovascular magnetic resonance based diagnosis of left ventricular non-compaction cardiomyopathy: impact of cine bSSFP strain analysis

    CONCLUSIONS: LVNC phenotype patients demonstrate impaired strain by CMR feature tracking, also present on comparison of subjects with normal LV […]

  • Can Quantitative CMR Tissue Characterization Adequately Identify Cardiotoxicity During Chemotherapy?: Impact of Temporal and Observer Variability

    CONCLUSIONS: The temporal changes in both biomarkers and tissue characterization measures in individual patients overlap with the temporal […]

  • Loss of base-to-apex circumferential strain gradient assessed by cardiovascular magnetic resonance in Fabry disease: relationship to T1 mapping, late gadolinium enhancement and hypertrophy

    CONCLUSIONS: CMR reproducibly identifies myocardial strain abnormalities in FD. Loss of base-to-apex CS gradient may be an early marker of cardiac […]

  • Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Identifying the Effects of Cancer Therapy

    The era of modern oncology incorporates an ever-evolving personalized approach to hematological malignancies and solid tumors. As a result, patient […]

  • Modified look-locker inversion recovery (MOLLI) T1 mapping with inversion group (IG) fitting - A method for improved precision

    MOLLI-based T1 mapping has been applied to a variety of cardiac pathologies. However, conventional MOLLI's requirement for rest periods between […]

  • Quantification of myocardial deformation by deformable registration-based analysis of cine MRI: validation with tagged CMR

    CONCLUSIONS: Non-rigid deformation method-based DRA provides a reliable measure of peak systolic GCS and GLS based on cine bSSFP with superior intra- […]

  • Giant right atrial aneurysm

    Only a handful of congenital aneurysms of the right atrium have been reported in the literature. They are most commonly found in the third decade of […]

  • Correction to: Imaging the myocardial ischemic cascade

    In the original publication of the article, the seventh author name "Matthias Gutberlet" has been misspelt.

  • Imaging the myocardial ischemic cascade

    Non-invasive imaging plays a growing role in the diagnosis and management of ischemic heart disease from its earliest manifestations of endothelial […]

  • The State of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Canada: Results from the CanSCMR Pan-Canadian Survey

    Over the past 25 years, cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) has developed into an increasingly valuable imaging modality. CMR is now a […]

  • The relationship between cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging measurement of extracellular volume fraction and clinical outcomes in adults with repaired tetralogy of Fallot

    CONCLUSION: Increased RVECV is associated with adverse cardiovascular events in adults with rTOF. These results may lead to further studies exploring […]

  • Outflow Graft Occlusion of the HeartMate 3 Left Ventricular Assist Device

    No abstract

  • Patterns of CMR measured longitudinal strain and its association with late gadolinium enhancement in patients with cardiac amyloidosis and its mimics

    CONCLUSION: The presence of marked "relative apical sparing" of LS along with a significant reduction in global LS seen in patients with CA on CMR […]

  • Effects of slice orientation on reproducibility of sequential assessment of right ventricular volumes and ejection fraction: short-axis vs transverse SSFP cine cardiovascular magnetic resonance

    CONCLUSION: Short-axis and transverse orientation both provide reliable and reproducible measures for follow-up of RV volumes and global function. […]

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