Evidence of Carotid Atherosclerosis Vulnerability Regression in Real Life From Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Results of the MAGNETIC Prospective Study.

Background Atherosclerosis vulnerability regression has been evidenced mostly in randomized clinical trials with intensive lipid-lowering therapy. We aimed to demonstrate vulnerability regression in real life, with a comprehensive quantitative method, in patients with asymptomatic mild to moderate carotid atherosclerosis on a secondary prevention program. Methods and Results We conducted a single-center prospective observational study (MAGNETIC [Magnetic Resonance Imaging as a Gold Standard for Noninvasive Evaluation of Atherosclerotic Involvement of Carotid Arteries]): 260 patients enrolled at a cardiac rehabilitation center were followed for 3 years with serial magnetic resonance imaging.

Importance of operator training and rest perfusion on the diagnostic accuracy of stress perfusion cardiovascular magnetic resonance.

Background: Clinical evaluation of stress perfusion cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) is currently based on visual assessment and has shown high diagnostic accuracy in previous clinical trials, when performed by expert readers or core laboratories. However, these results may not be generalizable to clinical practice, particularly when less experienced readers are concerned. Other factors, such as the level of training, the extent of ischemia, and image quality could affect the diagnostic accuracy.

Cardiac metastases of melanoma as first manifestation of the disease.

Cardiac metastases are rare, but more common than primary cardiac tumours, and metastatic melanoma involves heart or pericardium in greater than 50% of the cases, although cardiac metastasis are rarely diagnosed ante mortem because of the lack of symptoms. A multimodality approach may help to obtain a more timely diagnosis and in some cases a quicker and better diagnosis can enable a surgical resection to prevent cardiac failure or to reduce the tumour before chemotherapy. We present a case of a patient with cardiac metastasis as first evidence of a malignant melanoma: in this case the patient underwent echocardiography, cardiac magnetic resonance and computed tomography.