Extracardiac findings in cardiovascular magnetic resonance. A scientific curiosity or a real need?

lease cite this article in press as: Ma eed?, Hellenic Journal of Cardiolog tp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.hjc.2016 09-9666/a 2016 Hellenic Cardiologi ense (http://creativecommons.org/ The main objective of a CMR scan is to acquire specific imaging planes orientated to the heart. However, the initial axial and/or coronal images of the thorax and upper abdomen are also acquired and often lead to the imaging of substantially more regions than the heart. Most incidental extra-cardiac findings have no clinical relevance and include anatomic variations or benign lesions, such as cysts. However, these findings could represent clinically significant pathologies in preclinical stages. The early diagnosis of such incidental pathologies (e.g., gall stones, kidney or lung tumor) might prevent their progression and lead to better prognosis. Conversely, further investigation of an incidental benign lesion might lead to unnecessary examinations and significant increases of health care costs. Therefore, it is necessary to reliably discriminate between significant and insignificant extracardiac findings (ECF) to determine the need for further evaluations. The study by Ulyte et al. reported that ECF were documented in 5.3% of CMR cases. The data revealed that approximately one-quarter of ECF were clinically significant in the follow-up and that the overall prevalence in CMR was 1.3%. ECF were also rated according to their clinical significance to highlight relatively rare ECF that were clinically significant and associated with grave or urgent conditions, such as adrenal pathology, renal