The role of cardiovascular magnetic resonance in heart failure

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR), is an accepted gold standard for n on-invasive, accurate, and reproducible assessment of cardiac mass and func tion. The interest in its use for viability, myocardial perfusion and coron ary artery imaging is also widespread and growing rapidly as the hardware a nd expertise becomes available in more centres, and the scans themselves be come more cost effective. In patients with heart failure, accurate and repr oducible serial assessment of remodelling is of prognostic importance and t he lack of exposure to ionizing radiation is helpful. The concept of an int egrated approach to heart failure and its complications using CMR is fast b ecoming a reality, and this will be tested widely in the coming few years, with the new generation of dedicated CMR scanners. (C) 2000 European Societ y of Cardiology. All rights reserved.