Deep sedation for cardiac magnetic resonance imaging: a comparison with cardiac anesthesia.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that safety, efficacy, and image quality in pediatric patients who undergo deep sedation for cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) for congenital heart disease (CHD) is similar to general anesthesia (GA).

Study Design: Retrospective review of all CMR records from 1997-2006. Six hundred sixty patients underwent deep sedation (DS) and 161 underwent GA.