Assessment of the myocardium with cardiac computed tomography

Abstract

The imaging of myocardial disease is of increasing importance for cardiologists from all subspecialties, for diagnosis, risk stratification, or to facilitate therapy. While the gold standard modalities for such assessment are cardiac magnetic resonance and echocardiography, these are not universally suitable. Cardiac computed tomography (CT), well-established for the assessment of coronary artery disease (CAD), can be of value in the assessment of myocardial pathology, due to excellent patient compatibility and tolerability, high spatial resolution, and acceptable tissue characterization. This review considers the value and limitations of CT in the assessment of the myocardial sequelae of CAD, and for patients with a variety of other cardiomyopathic diseases, depicts some of the common findings, and considers current developments in this area.

Keywords: Cardiomyopathies; Cardiovascular diseases; Echocardiography; Magnetic resonance imaging; Tomography, X-ray computed.