Cardiac imaging techniques enable the visualization of the heart structure and cardiac blood flow for diagnostic evaluation or to guide cardiac procedures . Modalities include techniques such as tomography, ultrasonography, radionuclide imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, and endoscopy .

Cardiac imaging — Research & Evidence

Overview

Unverified · drafted by AI from the sources cited below

Definition

Cardiac imaging techniques enable the visualization of the heart structure and cardiac blood flow for diagnostic evaluation or to guide cardiac procedures.1 Modalities include techniques such as tomography, ultrasonography, radionuclide imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, and endoscopy.1

Diagnosis and risk stratification

Computed tomography coronary anatomy with functionality assessment could potentially become a first line in diagnosis.1 Complete computed tomography angiography assessment could provide a complete noninvasive assessment for diagnosis and risk management.1 In masters-aged athletes, defined as individuals at least 35 years of age, appropriate implementation of multimodality cardiovascular imaging is essential to guide risk stratification.2 Furthermore, artificial intelligence tools, such as digital stethoscopes and point-of-care ultrasound, facilitate decentralized screening and referral for cardiac imaging at the community level.3

Treatment

Cardiac imaging can provide anatomical and functional data to support decision-making on treatment.1 For example, in a trial of patients receiving percutaneous coronary intervention, magnetic resonance imaging was utilized after 3 to 7 days to measure the primary endpoint of myocardial salvage.2

Open questions

Many automated models have been all too often trained and validated using cardiac imaging samples from single clinical centres or homogeneous imaging protocols.1 This highlights the need for further research to improve generalizable deep learning for cardiac segmentation.1

New research on Cardiac imaging

The Future of Imaging in Heart Failure: Toward Precision Phenotyping, Integration, and Intelligence

Current Heart Failure Reports — Hundertmark M — Jul 2026

Association of the C-reactive protein-triglyceride glucose index with microvascular obstruction and long-term prognosis in patients with acute myocardial infarction: a CMR-based study

Frontiers in Endocrinology — Chen L — Jul 2026

Current and future use of artificial intelligence in valvular heart disease imaging

European Heart Journal - Cardiovascular Imaging — Sengupta P — Dec 2025

Cardiovascular Imaging Considerations for Masters-Aged Athletes

Key papers

Multi-Centre, Multi-Vendor and Multi-Disease Cardiac Segmentation: The M&Ms Challenge

IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging

535 citations · 2021 · among the most cited on Cardiac imaging

Randomized Trial of Interleukin-6 Receptor Inhibition in Patients With Acute ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction

Journal of the American College of Cardiology — Broch K

470 citations · 2021 · among the most cited on Cardiac imaging

Patients With Acute Myocarditis Following mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination

JAMA Cardiology — Kim H

339 citations · 2021 · among the most cited on Cardiac imaging

Cardiac sarcoidosis: state-of-the-art review

Heart — Kouranos V

261 citations · 2021 · among the most cited on Cardiac imaging

How this page is built

A clinical question appears here only when its condition matches this topic, an outcome and a comparator were extracted from the studies, at least two studies and a patient count are on file, and the certainty is low or higher.

Supports benefit, no benefit shown, and mixed describe the direction of the measured effect. No benefit shown means the evidence does not support a benefit. It is not a finding of harm. Too little evidence means the question did not clear that bar.

Study count, RCT count, and patient count are separate. The patient total adds only studies that are linked into a study family and whose sample size is not flagged as implausible. A reversal is listed only when at least one randomized trial sits on each side of the change.

The overview is drafted from the guideline recommendations, trials, papers, and questions on this page, and every sentence has to cite one of them. It stays unverified until an NPI-verified clinician or a Synapse admin approves it. Approving records that person's name.

Cardiac imaging

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