Cardiac MRI

Introduction Cardiac MR imaging allows for the examination of anatomy, function, and metabolism and its clinical use is steadily increasing. It poses unique challenges to the imaging protocols as it requires high spatial resolution over a larger volume in the presence of cardiac and breathing motion. This overview of cardiac MRI discusses methods to reduce motion artifacts and various clinical applications including the assessment of cardiac function, dark blood sequences for the visualization of anatomy, cardiac perfusion and viability studies with the administration of a contrast agent, and imaging of the coronary arteries.