Investigation of cardiomyopathy using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging part 1: Common phenotypes.

Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMRI) has emerged as a useful tertiary imaging tool in the investigation of patients suspected of many different types of cardiomyopathies. CMRI sequences are now of a sufficiently robust quality to enable high spatial and temporal resolution image acquisition. This has led to CMRI becoming an effective non-invasive imaging gold standard for many cardiomyopathies. In this 2-part review, we outline the typical sequences used to image cardiomyopathy, and present the imaging spectrum of cardiomyopathy. Part 1 focuses on the current classification of cardiomyopathy, basic CMRI sequences used in evaluating cardiomyopathy and the imaging spectrum of common phenotypes.