Heart and Vascular Center
Diagnostic Laboratories and Imaging
Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
Cardiac MRI is an increasingly important tool for imaging the heart. MRI can detect which areas of the heart sustained damage after a heart attack, how much damage was done, and how much live muscle remains. This information is crucial when considering angioplasty, stenting or heart bypass surgery.
MRI can be beneficial in assessing coronary artery disease, heart muscle abnormalities, tumors, valve disease and problems of the blood vessels. MRI also is useful for imaging specific diseases such as arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, an abnormality in the fat deposit in the right ventricle that causes an electrical abnormality. Because MRI can characterize the type of damage in the heart, it is also used to study causes of heart failure. MRI can help determine whether the cause of the heart failure is idiopathic cardiomyopathy, (heart failure of unknown cause), is related to a myocarditis (an inflammation of the heart muscle) or is due to hypertrophic myopathy (an abnormal thickening of the heart muscle).
Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin have a dedicated cardiac MRI physician and technicians trained in this special type of imaging.
Last Review Date: June 18, 2008 Online Editor(s): Richard Petre |