The prospective study of cardiac MRI in the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac sarcoidosis associated with atrioventricular block

Background Sarcoidosis is systemic granulomatous disease of unknown etiology. Most patients present with pulmonary involvement, but association of cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) is critical factor determining prognosis. Recently, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) and 18Ffluoro-2-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG PET) can detect cardiac lesions in asymptomatic sarcoidosis patients. On the other hand, Conduction abnormalities and ventricular tachycardia are the most common arrhythmias with CS. With the experience of CS pointed out accidentally in PET medical examination at earlier stage got us to recognize the usefulness of CMR, we conducted a study to figure out real-world prevalence of CS in advanced atrioventricular block (AVB) cases and to assess the usability of “aggressive” diagnosis of CS by cardiac MRI.