Infiltrative Cardiomyopathies Review

CMR has a class I indication for the differential diagnosis of cardiomyopathies, many of which fall into the infiltrative category. Knowing what to look for and the clinical aspects of some relatively rare diseases that may resemble each other very easily is fundamental for all performing CMR.

In this review manuscript CMR is acknowledged many times with a special attention to very illustrative tables.

A link to the manuscript can be found here.

Ischemia, ischemia, ischemia

The majority of our responders say that ischemia exams represent a great bulk of their total CMR exams. A focus on better sequences/techniques for that purpose must always be a primary target for CMR research.

Should we be interested in coronary anatomy as well? Take your time and read carefully this masterpiece on anatomy versus functional ischemia by Gould KL on Jacc Imaging:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19679290

A manuscript that should be read many times to illustrate how we lost track of the facts on CAD along the way and why ischemia detection by CMR is so important.

How long ago did I have that infarct, doc?

Anyone reporting CMR results to a patient that did not know if he/she had a previous infarct must have heard that question. The typical answer would be that we could not precisely tell if the infarct occurred a few days, weeks or years before the exam with LGE. Now Kirschner R et al, using a new Gd based compound, helped to answer the question - at least partially - by differentiating acute vs 4-week old infarcts.

Read the full text free in JCMR.

Amyloidosis Review

Amyloidosis has always been CMR turf. A new review explains why and shows new insights into how can CMR be used in the diagnosis and prognosis of this disease in the heart.

JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging
Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2009, Pages 1378-1380