Clinical benefit of cardiac resynchronization therapy with a defibrillator in patients with an ejection fraction > 35% estimated by cardiac magnetic resonance.

Introduction And Objectives: Cardiac resynchronization therapy with a defibrillator prolongs survival and improves quality of life in advanced heart failure. Traditionally, patients with ejection fraction > 35 estimated by echocardiography have been excluded. We assessed the prognostic impact of this therapy in a group of patients with severely depressed systolic function as assessed by echocardiography but with an ejection fraction > 35% as assessed by cardiac magnetic resonance.

Etiological diagnosis of left ventricular dysfunction: computed tomography compared with coronary angiography and cardiac magnetic resonance.

Introduction And Objectives: To evaluate the capability of multidetector computed tomography to diagnose the coronary etiology of left ventricular dysfunction compared with using invasive coronary angiography and magnetic resonance.

Methods: Forty consecutive patients with left ventricular dysfunction of uncertain etiology underwent invasive coronary angiography and contrast magnetic resonance. All patients were evaluated with multidetector computed tomography including coronary calcium presence and score, noninvasive coronary angiography, and myocardial tissue assessment.