Foundations of CMR: Level 1 Virtual Course-SESSION 2: CMR FUNDAMENTALS

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The transcript covers a cardiac MRI teaching session with several expert talks on key CMR techniques and applications.<br /><br />Dr. Vinita Oja explained phase contrast MRI, a noninvasive method to measure blood flow volume, velocity, and direction. She described the physics behind the sequence, the importance of velocity encoding (VENC), and how aliasing occurs when VENC is set too low. She reviewed through-plane vs in-plane imaging, ECG gating, breath-hold vs free-breathing acquisition, sequence planning for aorta and pulmonary artery, and clinical uses such as assessing valve disease, shunts, regurgitation, coarctation, and collateral flow. She also discussed common pitfalls and newer 4D flow MRI.<br /><br />Dr. Avanti presented late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging, focusing on technique, inversion time selection, image interpretation, and pattern recognition. She highlighted ischemic vs non-ischemic scar patterns, viability assessment, microvascular obstruction, and LGE findings in cardiomyopathies such as amyloidosis, myocarditis, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and constrictive pericarditis.<br /><br />Dr. Richa Kothari discussed stress CMR, including vasodilator stress with adenosine/regadenoson and dobutamine stress testing. She covered patient preparation, scan protocol, interpretation of perfusion defects, and how stress CMR compares favorably with SPECT in sensitivity.<br /><br />Dr. Vishnu introduced parametric mapping, especially T1, T2, T2*, and extracellular volume (ECV) mapping, explaining how these quantify diffuse myocardial disease and improve diagnosis beyond conventional LGE. He emphasized standardization and artifact recognition.<br /><br />Dr. Manful Singhal reviewed CMR in patients with cardiac implantable electronic devices, explaining device-related safety concerns, artifacts, and troubleshooting strategies such as wideband LGE and alternate sequences.

Keywords

cardiac MRI

CMR techniques

phase contrast MRI

late gadolinium enhancement

stress CMR

parametric mapping

T1 mapping

T2 mapping

T2* mapping

extracellular volume

cardiac implantable electronic devices

velocity encoding

myocardial perfusion

myocardial scar

4D flow MRI