Acquired valvular heart disease
Abstract Valvular heart disease affects more than 100 million people worldwide and represents a growing problem because of the high incidence of rheumatic heart disease in developing countries and the…
Cardiomyopathy
Abstract Cardiomyopathy encompasses a diverse yet often overlapping spectrum of pathologies and phenotypes. This chapter reviews and discusses the clinical applications of the cardiac imaging modalities to the assessment, diagnosis,…
Systemic diseases
Abstract Cardiac imaging is very important for diagnosis, management, and risk stratification of systemic diseases involving the heart such as arterial systemic hypertension, diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome, autoimmune connective…
Myocarditis
Abstract This chapter describes diagnostic imaging for myocarditis. Various imaging modalities are discussed, comparing their specific advantages and disadvantages. For imaging acute myocarditis, cardiac magnetic resonance offers the greatest potential—compared…
Cardiac tumours
Abstract The differential diagnosis for a cardiac mass is broad, and includes thrombus, normal anatomical variants, metastases, and a variety of primary cardiac tumours. Although cardiac tumours are rare, they…
Contractile function and heart failure
Abstract Assessment of contractile function in the context of heart failure is mandatory. Of course, one has to measure the left ventricular ejection (LVEF) for distinguishing heart failure with preserved…
Diseases of the thoracic aorta and pulmonary arteries
Abstract Many acute and chronic clinical entities can affect the great thoracic arteries. As clinical findings are often unreliable, (mostly) noninvasive imaging plays a crucial role both in the initial…
Pericardial diseases
Abstract Echocardiography is the first-line imaging technique for the diagnosis and the follow-up of pericardial disease. However, computed tomography (CT) and cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging provide complementary information to…
Imaging guided interventions
Abstract Recently, several minimally invasive approaches for interventional therapy of structural heart diseases have been developed. For example, transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is an alternative therapeutic option for high-risk…
Arrhythmia
Abstract This chapter discusses different imaging techniques that are increasingly being used in patients with arrhythmias and in cardiac electrophysiology, the latter comprising ablation procedures and implantation of devices. Currently,…
