BACKGROUND Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) is widely recognized as a non-invasive gold standard for quantification of ventricular volumes. In addition, it is an emerging diagnostic modality for clinical evaluation of mitral regurgitation (MR) and aortic regurgitation (AR). CMR facilitates accurate quantitation of regurgitation volumes and regurgitant fraction, but referring physicians a...

This paper features the most interesting presentations and discussions of the 2008 Annual Sessions of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, which were held in Los Angeles from February 1 to 3, 2008. With more than 1100 attendees, this was the largest of the SCMR meetings ever. Among this year's highlights were scientific reports on CMR-based risk assessment, non-contrast tissue cha...

Over the past years, cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) has proven its efficacy in large clinical trials, and consequently, the assessment of function, viability, and ischaemia by CMR is now an integrated part of the diagnostic armamentarium in cardiology. By combining these CMR applications, coronary artery disease (CAD) can be detected in its early stages and this allows for intervention...

PURPOSE In mitral valve prolapse, determining whether the valve is suitable for surgical repair depends on the location and mechanism of regurgitation. We assessed whether cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) could accurately identify prolapsing or flail mitral valve leaflets and regurgitant jet direction in patients with known moderate or severe mitral regurgitation. METHODS CMR of the mi...

BACKGROUND The indications, complexity and capabilities of cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) have rapidly expanded. Whether actual service provision and training have developed in parallel is unknown. METHODS We undertook a systematic telephone and postal survey of all public hospitals on behalf of the British Society of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance to identify all CMR providers wi...

BACKGROUND Stress cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) has typically involved pharmacologic agents. Treadmill CMR has shown utility in single-center studies but has not undergone multicenter evaluation. METHODS AND RESULTS Patients referred for treadmill stress nuclear imaging (SPECT) were prospectively enrolled across 4 centers. After rest (99m)Tc SPECT, patients underwent resting cine CMR. In-r...

BACKGROUND Accurate measures are critical when attempting to distinguish normal from pathological changes in cardiac function during exercise, yet imaging modalities have seldom been assessed against invasive exercise standards. We sought to validate a novel method of biventricular volume quantification by cardiac MRI (CMR) during maximal exercise. METHODS AND RESULTS CMR was performed on 34 ...

AIM To develop a cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) method for non-invasive estimation of pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR). METHODS AND RESULTS The study comprised 100 consecutive patients with known or suspected pulmonary hypertension (PH; 53 ± 16 years, 73% women) who underwent same-day right heart catheterization (RHC) and CMR. Increased PVR was defined from RHC as >3 WU (n = 66, 66%). Fr...

BACKGROUND The extent and severity of ischemia on myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS) is commonly used to risk-stratify patients with coronary artery disease. Estimation of ischemic burden by cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) with conventional 2-dimensional myocardial perfusion methods is limited by incomplete cardiac coverage. More recently developed 3-dimensional (3D) myocardial per...

AIMS To determine in a multicentre, multivendor trial the diagnostic performance for perfusion-cardiac magnetic resonance (perfusion-CMR) in comparison with coronary X-ray angiography (CXA) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). METHODS AND RESULTS Of 241 eligible patients from 18 centres, 234 were randomly dosed with 0.01, 0.025, 0.05, 0.075, or 0.1 mmol/kg Gd-DTPA-BMA (Omni...