IMR Press / RCM / Volume 17 / Issue 1-2 / DOI: 10.3909/ricm0811

Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine (RCM) is published by IMR Press from Volume 19 Issue 1 (2018). Previous articles were published by another publisher in Open Access under a CC-BY (or CC-BY-NC-ND) licence, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with MedReviews, LLC.

Open Access Review
The Role of Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
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1 Cardiology and Interventional Cardiology Unit, Ospedali Riuniti Marche Nord, Pesaro, Italy
2 Cardiology Clinic, Ospedali Riuniti di Ancona, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy
3 Radiology Department, Ospedali Riuniti Marche Nord, Pesaro, Italy
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2016, 17(1-2), 57–64; https://doi.org/10.3909/ricm0811
Published: 30 March 2016
Abstract
Until recently, the only imaging technique for the diagnosis and management of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) was two-dimensional echocardiography, and the use of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI) was limited to patients with poor acoustic windows. Now, cMRI has gained an essential role in the diagnosis of HCM, providing superior visualization of myocardial hypertrophy—even in remote zones of the left ventricle—and visualization of subtle changes in thickness and contractility over time. The morphologic accuracy of cMRI allows for the differentiation of HCM from other pathologic conditions with hypertrophic phenotype. Moreover, cMRI sheds light on the in vivo fibrotic changes in cardiac ultrastructure, offering an important advantage in the understanding of pathologic mechanisms of the disease, allowing early identification, risk stratification, and timely therapeutic management.
Keywords
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
Cardiac magnetic resonance
Differential diagnosis
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