title: Noncardiac findings in clinical cardiac magnetic resonance: prevalence in 300 examinations after blind reassessment.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the prevalence of noncardiac findings (NCFs) in a consecutive series of 300 cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) studies.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively evaluated CMRs of 192 males and 108 females (42 ± 22 years), comparing findings included in reports to those detected after focused reassessment of CMR images. Noncardiac findings were classified as relevant if additional workup was required.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found 19 NCFs, 14 (4.7%) tagged as nonrelevant and 5 (1.7%) as relevant. Images' reassessment presented 45 NCFs, 26 (8.7%) nonrelevant and 16 (5.3%) relevant (P < 0.003).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cardiac magnetic resonance involves the study of areas larger than the heart alone, and NCFs are found in 1 of 7 patients; more than a half of them are not included in the initial CMR report. A small part is relevant, but detection can be unnecessarily stressful and harmful for patients and could increase costs. Risks of overdiagnosis or underreporting are to be taken into account.
authors.affiliation: Unità di Radiologia, IRCCS Policlinico San Donato, Milan, Italy. francesco.secchi@grupposandonato.it
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Secchi
authors.forename: Ezio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lanza
authors.forename: Paola Maria
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Cannaò
authors.forename: Marcello
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Petrini
authors.forename: Luca Maria
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Sconfienza
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sardanelli
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033162:Incidental Findings; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric