Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. Jan 28, 2017; 9(1): 1-4
Published online Jan 28, 2017. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v9.i1.1
Cutting edge clinical applications in cardiovascular magnetic resonance
Carlo N De Cecco, Giuseppe Muscogiuri, Akos Varga-Szemes, U Joseph Schoepf
Carlo N De Cecco, Akos Varga-Szemes, U Joseph Schoepf, Division of Cardiovascular Imaging, Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, United States
Giuseppe Muscogiuri, Department of Imaging, Bambino Gesù - Children’s Hospital IRCCS, 00146 Rome, Italy
Giuseppe Muscogiuri, Department of Clinical and Molecular Medicine, University of Rome “Sapienza”, 00185 Rome, Italy
U Joseph Schoepf, Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, United States
Author contributions: De Cecco CN, Muscogiuri G, Varga-Szemes A and Schoepf UJ all contributed equally to conception, drafting the article and revising it critically for intellectual content.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Dr. U Joseph Schoepf is a consultant for and/or receives research support from Astellas, Bayer, Bracco, GE, Guerbet, Medrad, and Siemens; De Cecco is a consultant for Guerbet and receives financial support from Siemens. The other authors declare no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Carlo N De Cecco, MD, PhD, Division of Cardiovascular Imaging, Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Medical University of South Carolina, 25 Courtenay Drive, MSC 226, Charleston, SC 29425, United States. dececco@musc.edu
Telephone: +1-843-8763185 Fax: +1-843-8763157
Received: September 14, 2016
Peer-review started: September 18, 2016
First decision: October 21, 2016
Revised: November 4, 2016
Accepted: November 27, 2016
Article in press: November 29, 2016
Published online: January 28, 2017
Abstract

Today, the use of cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) is widespread in clinical practice. The increased need to evaluate of subtle myocardial changes, coronary artery anatomy, and hemodynamic assessment has prompted the development of novel CMR techniques including T1 and T2 mapping, non-contrast angiography and four dimensional (4D) flow. T1 mapping is suitable for diagnosing pathologies affecting extracellular volume such as myocarditis, diffuse myocardial fibrosis and amyloidosis, and is a promising diagnostic tool for patients with iron overload and Fabry disease. T2 mapping is useful in depicting acute myocardial edema and estimating the amount of salvageable myocardium following an ischemic event. Novel angiography techniques, such as the self-navigated whole-heart or the quiescent-interval single-shot sequence, enable the visualization of the great vessels and coronary artery anatomy without the use of contrast material. The 4D flow technique overcomes the limitations of standard phase-contrast imaging and allows for the assessment of cardiovascular hemodynamics in the great arteries and flow patterns in the cardiac chambers. In conclusion, the future of CMR is heading toward a more reliable quantitative assessment of the myocardium, an improved non-contrast visualization of the coronary artery anatomy, and a more accurate evaluation of the cardiac hemodynamics.

Keywords: Cardiac magnetic resonance, T1 mapping, Magnetic resonance angiography, T2 mapping, Four dimensional flow

Core tip: The increased need for the evaluation of subtle myocardial changes, coronary artery anatomy, and hemodynamic assessment has prompted the development of novel cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) techniques including T1 and T2 mapping, non-contrast angiography and four dimensional flow. CMR is heading toward a more reliable quantitative assessment of the myocardium, an improved non-contrast visualization of the coronary artery anatomy, and a more accurate evaluation of the cardiac hemodynamics.