Cardiac MRI in the treatment of arrhythmias

Abstract

Catheter-based ablation techniques are extensively used for the treatment of atrial and ventricular arrhythmias. Preprocedural cardiac MRI is valuable for the management of these patients due to its ability to provide high-resolution anatomic mapping and tissue characterization in the absence of ionizing radiation. Delayed enhancement imaging can be used to localize the arrhythmia substrate within the chamber of interest prior to the procedure. There is growing evidence that delayed enhancement cardiac MRI may be useful in patients with atrial fibrillation in terms of treatment decisions and assessment of ablation efficacy.

Keywords::

• ablation
• arrhythmia
• delayed enhancement
• fibrosis
• MRI

Financial & competing interests disclosure

S Nazarian is funded by NIH Grant (K23-HL089333) and has received honoraria for lectures (non-speakers’ bureau) from St Jude Medical, Biotronic and Boston Scientific S Nazarian is also Inc. He is on the MRI advisory panel (unpaid) for Medtronic and is a scientific advisor to Biosense Webster, Inc. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.