Quantitation of cardiac dimensions from ECG-synchronized MRI studies.

The ability to measure the heart is useful for evaluation of a wide variety of conditions. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has a number of characteristics that make it potentially one of the best methods for obtaining cardiac measurements, in particular its ability to produce uniformly high-quality images in any desired plane. It is important that techniques for measurement be standardized so that methods are reproducible from patient to patient, allowing normal standards to be established, and from examination to examination in the same patient, so that serial measurements accurately reflect change in cardiac status.