cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) provides outstanding anatomical and functional detail. Consequently its main clinical uses are:
to characterise congenital heart disease and its complications
to measure right and left ventricular mass (CMR is the gold standard for quantifying left ventricular hypertrophy)
to differentiate forms of cardiomyopathies, such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy and infiltrative diseases such as sarcoid and amyloid
to assess left and right ventricular function, regional wall motion abnormalities, myocardial viability and myocardial perfusion. Areas of myocardial infarction can be identified following administration of intravenous gadolinium
to identify stress induced myocardial ischaemia during infusions of dobutamine or adenosine
In addition, CMR has a role in the assessment of intra-cardiac masses and quantifying intra- and extra-cardiac shunt flows
can image the entire aorta it is increasingly used for diagnosis and follow-up of patients with several aortic pathologies e.g. dissection, Marfan and aneurysm
Notes:
however, although CMR can visualise the large proximal portions of coronary arteries, such that it is used to diagnose rare congenital anomalies of the coronaries, CMR currently cannot produce images of sufficient quality to assess coronary artery disease
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