Diagnosis of Cardiac Diseases

For decades, non-invasive cardiac assessment has been at the center of interest. Non-invasive imaging modalities, such as MSCT, MRI, SPECT, PET, and echocardiography, provide valuable cardiac information, and all have been used to measure cardiac morphology, function, perfusion, viability of myocardium, and coronary anatomy for clinical management and research. The last decade brought major advances in cardiac imaging with MSCT and MRI playing a significant role in the diagnosis and follow-up of cardiac disease (Table 1). Since 1990, improvements in computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging have allowed their clinical application for morphological and functional imaging of the heart. The first study of coronary artery imaging by means of ECG-gated MSCT was reported by Ohnesorge et al. in 2000.