title: Evaluation of the cardiac surgery patient by MRI and CT imaging: the state of the art.
abstract: Over the last few years, the landscape of cardiovascular imaging has changed significantly. CT and MRI have emerged as robust imaging tools for diagnosing and characterizing a nearly exhaustive spectrum of cardiovascular diseases. With ECG-gating, advanced tomographic imaging techniques are available for imaging the beating heart and surrounding structures with unprecedented accuracy and precision. These new methods provide clinicians with substantial additional information, including--in the case of MRI--quantitative data on blood flow physiology and accurate measurements of ventricular volumes and function. Importantly, MRI has made recent dramatic strides in the evaluation of ischemic heart disease, and CT appears poised to provide an accurate alternative to catheter angiography in the anatomic assessment of obstructive coronary artery disease. The future of both of these modalities in the non-invasive evaluation of heart disease is bright.
authors.affiliation: Cardiovascular MRI and CT, Rhode Island Hospital, USA. matalay@lifespan.org
authors.forename: Michael K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Atalay
mesh_terms: D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography; D011859:Radiography; D013903:Thoracic Surgery; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed