Functional cardiac magnetic resonance: Comparison with echocardiography

PURPOSE: This study is designed to test the effectiveness of cardiac magneticresonance imaging (CMR) in evaluating heart as an alternative method toechocardiography.MATERIALS AND METHODS: From October 2008 to August 2009, 38 patientswho underwent echocardiography and CMR were retrospectively evaluated. CineSSFP sequence was used to calculate EF, ventricular and atrial measurements andwall thickness of left ventricle (LV). Velocity and flow information in the aortic,mitral and tricuspid valves were obtained by using velocity-encoded CMR. Paired-Samples T, Pearson?s correlation coefficient, McNemar and Kappa tests were used tocompare between CMR and echocardiography outcomes.RESULTS: There were no significant differences between echo and CMR for LVinner diameter in end-systole, LA diameter end-systolic, aortic root diameter and RVinner diameter in end-diastole (for all, p>0,05). Measurements of LV inner diameterin end-diastole, septal wall and posterior wall thickness in end-systole showed a goodcorrelation with CMR and echo (r=0,795, r= 0,798, r=0,536). EF estimated withCMR showed perfect correlation with EF estimated by using echo (r= 0,80, p<0,01).Our results had a good correlation between two methods in terms of diastolicdisfunction. When compared with echocardiography, CMR revealed good (?=0,660),poor (?=0,370), moderate (?=0,504), very good (?=1,0) and poor (?=0,270)correlations for mitral regurgitation, mitral stenosis, aortic regurgitation, aorticstenosis and tricuspid regurgitation, respectively. Peak E and peak A velocities in themitral inflow measured by both two methods showed moderate correlation with ?values of 0,435 and 0,493. A highly good accordance between the two methods interms of the measurements of peak velocity in aortic valve (?=0,778).CONCLUSION: We found that there is a good correlation and agreement betweenCMR and echocardiography in evaluating heart. Although echocardiograph is widelyavailable, relatively low cost and portable, CMR can be used an alternative method toechocardiography especially for acusticly poor patients.Key Words: Cardiac MRI, functional analysis, echocardiography