MR Imaging Technique in Cardiovascular Diseases

Abstract

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an advanced medical imaging method developed in the 1980s. In variance from the known classical imaging methods (such as X-rays and ultrasound) MRI renders real images of organs by using physiological parameters. MRI is privileged of being used in imaging all organs of human body because of the data it offers. MRI has been widely used in the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases as a non-invasive imaging method in an increasing manner. The anatomy of all cardiac chambers, atrio-ventricular morphology, great vessels and their relations with the cardiac chambers can be evaluated in detail with MRI in congenital cardiac pathologies. MRI, with its increasing use parallel to the recent technologic advances both in software and hardware, has also been used to evaluate myocardial ischemia. Diffusion- and perfusion-weighted MRI applications are effective to evaluate acute myocardial ischemia and differentiate it from myocardial necrosis and scar tissue in the chronic stage. MR-angiography is another advantage of this technique and can also show the flow in vessels nonivasively and coronary arteries can thus be evaluated morphologically. The use of MRI in the evaluation of cardiovascular diseases provides the chance of evaluating morphology, physiology and histology of this organ with a single and non-invasive method getting an increasing importance in this field. The contributions that MRI may provide in the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases were herein reviewed in the light of recent advances MR technology reached.