Magnetic resonance imaging]

During the last ten years substantial improvement of hardware and software used for the construction of MRI scanners has made available MRI sequences with high temporal and spatial image resolution. Therefore, MR imaging has become an excellent tool and in certain cases the gold standard for the evaluation of cardiovascular diseases. Primary indications for cardiovascular MRI include the assessment of aortic diseases, the arrhythmogenic right ventricle, surgically corrected congenital heart diseases, pericardial disease, intra- and paracardiac tumors and quantification of ventricular function and volumes and myocardial mass. Secondary indications include hypertrophic and dilative cardiomyopathies, valvular and ischemic heart disease. MRI is a totally noninvasive diagnostic technique which is safe and without known harmful potential to biological tissue. The wide diagnostic spectrum providing anatomical, geometrical functional and biochemical information cannot be accomplished by any other diagnostic method.