Assessment of cardiac function by CMR.

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) has emerged as a valuable tool for the non-invasive morphological and functional assessment of the heart. By means of a variety of pulse sequences, accurate estimations of ventricular mass, volumes, ejection fraction and flow volume can be readily performed. When carefully prescribed, CMR sequences provide values on these parameters that can be considered as referential for both the right and left ventricle. This is due to the anatomical approach of the CMR method that, in contrast with other imaging techniques, is based on direct measurements rather than on indirect geometrical assumptions.