The incremental role of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging as diagnostic and prognostic tool in cardiovascular diseases

Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging offers incremental value as diagnostic and prognostic tool in a wide range of cardiac diseases in front of the traditional non-invasive imaging techniques. Tissue characterization with and without non-nephrotoxic contrast-media offers the opportunity of precise assessment of myocardial fibrosis, edema and fatty infiltration. The quantitative assessment of myocardial mass, left and right ventricular volumes is considered a gold standard reference with important effects on clinical decision making and cost effectiveness ratio. The recent introduction of new sequences for mapping tissue resonance signal and myocardial strain will improve the diagnostic and prognostic accuracy for cardiovascular diseases.