Does heart rate influence CMR image quality of the coronary vessel wall?

Excerpt

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) has made tremendous advances over the past years, providing accurate evaluation of left ventricular mass, volumes and function [1‐4]. CMR has shown unique abilities in characterizing myocardial tissue composition. In particular, high-resolution contrast-enhanced CMR has been used to visualize myocardial fibrosis with a high accuracy [5‐7]. For instance, in patients with acute myocardial infarction, the injured myocardium shows increased CMR contrast compared to normal myocardium when imaged by delayed gadolinium enhancement. The transmural extent of delayed gadolinium enhancement predicts functional outcome after interventional procedures performed in patients with acute myocardial infarction and chronic ischemic heart disease [8‐10]. Not only in the setting of an acute myocardial infarction, but also in patients with various manifestations of cardiomyopathy, evidence of delayed gadolinium enhancement may have important clinical and prognostic implications [11‐13]. CMR has become the first choice imaging modality in complex congenital heart disease and imaging great vessels [14‐18]. Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) has been introduced as a method that can provide visualization of all three major coronary arteries, coronary bypasses and the aorta within a single three-dimensional acquisition [19‐22]. In particular, CMR has proven to be of indispensable value in identifying aortic stiffness in Marfan patients using pulse wave velocity measurements [23, 24]. …