De Maria E, Aldrovandi A, Borghi A, Modonesi L, Cappelli S. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging: Which information is useful for the arrhythmologist? World J Cardiol 2017; 9(10): 773-786 [PMID: 29104737 DOI: 10.4330/wjc.v9.i10.773]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Elia De Maria, MD, PhD, Chief of Arrhythmology Lab, Cardiology Unit, Ramazzini Hospital, Via Molinari 1, 41012 Carpi (Modena), Italy. e.demaria@inwind.it
Research Domain of This Article
Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Elia De Maria, Annachiara Aldrovandi, Ambra Borghi, Letizia Modonesi, Stefano Cappelli, Cardiology Unit, Ramazzini Hospital, 41012 Carpi (Modena), Italy
Author contributions: De Maria E and Aldrovandi A contributed to concept/design, data analysis/interpretation, manuscript drafting, critical revision and approval; Borghi A, Modonesi L and Cappelli S contributed to manuscript drafting, critical revision and approval.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest exist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Elia De Maria, MD, PhD, Chief of Arrhythmology Lab, Cardiology Unit, Ramazzini Hospital, Via Molinari 1, 41012 Carpi (Modena), Italy. e.demaria@inwind.it
Telephone: +39-5-9659320 Fax: +39-5-9659387
Received: April 12, 2017 Peer-review started: April 16, 2017 First decision: May 9, 2017 Revised: May 23, 2017 Accepted: June 12, 2017 Article in press: June 13, 2017 Published online: October 26, 2017 Processing time: 193 Days and 7.2 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is a non-ionizing diagnostic technique that generates images with high spatial and temporal resolution. After administration of contrast media (e.g., gadolinium chelate), it is also possible to acquire late images, which make possible the identification and quantification of myocardial areas with scar/fibrosis (late gadolinium enhancement). In recent years, its field of application has extended to arrhythmology, both in diagnostic and prognostic evaluation of arrhythmic risk and in therapeutic decision-making. In this review, we discuss the applications of CMR for the arrhythmologist. It is possible to identify three main fields of application in this context: (1) arrhythmic and sudden cardiac death risk stratification; (2) decision making in cardiac resynchronization therapy device implantation; and (3) substrate identification for guiding ablation of complex arrhythmias.
