Magnetic resonance imaging of the infant heart at 1.5 T

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Abstract
Magnetic resonance (MR) has been found to be of value in many fields of medicine but has yet to find an established place in the study of diseases of the heart. Published studies of the heart have demonstrated its ability to identify areas of acute myocardial infarction (Been et al, 1985b) and old infarcts (Higgins et al, 1984b), to recognize hypertrophic cardiomyopathies (Been et al, 1985a), pericardial effusions (Stark et al, 1984) and constrictive pericarditis (Soulen et al, 1985). It is, in addition, possible to measure ventricular volumes (Longmore et al, 1985) and images containing blood-flow-related data can be acquired (Ridgway & Smith, 1986; Underwood et al, 1987). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been suggested to have a particularly valuable role in the study of the anatomy of the congenitally malformed heart (Higgins et al, 1984a) and imaging studies of a limited number of cases have been published (Jacobstein et al, 1985a,b; Boxer et al, 1986; Didier & Higgins, 1986; Didier et al, 1986; Fletcher & Jacobstein, 1986; von Shulthess et al, 1986). However, in these studies from a small number of research centres there is very little experience in the use of MRI in infants. Since 90% of patients with congenital heart disease present in the first year of life (Hoffman & Christianson, 1978), if MRI is to play a role in the investigation of congenital cardiovascular abnormalities it is essential to be able to image infants within the first year.