Transcatheter closure of atrial septal defects has become a popular procedure. The availability of a preprocedural imaging study is crucial for a safe and successful closure. Both the anatomy and morphology of the defect should be precisely evaluated before the procedure. Three-dimensional (3D) echocardiography and cardiac computed tomography are helpful for understanding the morphology of a de...

background: severe and prolonged physical training is associated with morphological and physiological cardiac changes, often termed as the “athlete’s heart”. echocardiographic features peculiar to elite iranian athletes have not been previously described. the aim was to examine the echocardiographic characteristics of highly trained iranian athletes involved in three different sports.   methods...

1. Site of origin. They are either ventricular or supraventricular. Supraventricular ectopics may be subclassified into either: (a) atrial (originating in the atria) or (b) junctional or nodal (originating in the AV node or bundle of His). 2. Timing. Ectopic complexes that occur before the next normal complex would have been due are termed premature, and those that occur following a pause such ...

introduction heart failure is the second most common cause of ascites after cirrhosis. there are cardiac and noncardiac etiologies of ascites, and the multimodality imaging approach is a rich tool to redefine the final diagnosis. case presentation we present a case-series where 3 patients were referred to our hospital for further hepatology assessment due to severe abdominal ascites and liver f...

With the introduction of mouse models for the study of cardiac morphogenesis, there arises a need for new imaging protocols that can capture both morphological and functional information. High-resolution 2D cardiac cine MRI has often been used to quantify left and right ventricular function. In this study we propose a 3D isotropic cardiac cine MRI protocol with a voxel size of 200 microm(3) as ...

Cardiac involvement frequently occurs in systemic sclerosis (SSc), contributing to the occurrence of symptoms, namely dyspnoea, fatigue, palpitations, and in some instances to the clinical evolution and prognosis of the disease. A thorough baseline screening of heart functioning and appropriate follow-up monitoring is therefore mandatory in all SSc patients. This consists of various simple, non...

For the last 15 years, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has become a reference examination for cardiac morphology, function and perfusion in humans. Yet, due to the characteristics of cardiac MR images and to the great variability of the images among patients, the problem of heart cavities segmentation in MRI is still open. This paper is a review of fully and semi-automated methods performing s...

Monomorphic ventricular tachycardia (VT) developed in two patients with cardiac sarcoidosis. Before treatment with prednisolone, technetium or gallium scintigram revealed abnormal accumulation in the heart and bilateral hilar lymph nodes, but programmed electrical stimulation failed to induce VT in either case. Prednisolone was administered and the abnormal accumulation of the scintigra ms disa...

Multimodality cardiovascular imaging plays a central role in caring for patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). CHD clinicians and scientists are interested not only in cardiac morphology but also in the maladaptive ventricular responses and extracellular changes predisposing to adverse outcomes in this population. Expertise in the applications, strengths, and pitfalls of these cardiovasc...

A novel approach to three-dimensional (3D) visualization of high quality, respiratory compensated cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) data is presented with the purpose of assisting the cardiovascular surgeon and the invasive cardiologist in the pre-operative planning. Developments included: (1) optimization of 3D, MR scan protocols; (2) dedicated segmentation software; (3) optimization of model ge...