Stress cardiac MR imaging: the role of stress functional assessment and perfusion imaging in the evaluation of ischemic heart disease.

Stress cardiac magnetic resonance imaging can provide valuable information for the diagnosis and management of ischemic heart disease (IHD). It plays an important role in the initial diagnosis in patients with acute chest pain, in the diagnosis of complications post myocardial infarction (MI), in the assessment of the right ventricle after an acute MI, to detect complications due to or after interventions, in prediction of myocardial recovery, to detect inducible ischemia in patients with known IHD, in differentiating ischemic from non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy, and in risk stratification.