Noncardiac Findings in Clinical Cardiac Magnetic Resonance

PURPOSE: To assess the prevalence of noncardiac findings (NCFs) in a consecutive series of 300 cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) studies. METHODS: We retrospectively evaluated CMRs of 192 males and 108 females (42 \ub1 22 years), comparing findings included in reports to those detected after focused reassessment of CMR images. Noncardiac findings were classified as relevant if additional workup was required. RESULTS: We found 19 NCFs, 14 (4.7%) tagged as nonrelevant and 5 (1.7%) as relevant. Images' reassessment presented 45 NCFs, 26 (8.7%) nonrelevant and 16 (5.3%) relevant (P < 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: Cardiac magnetic resonance involves the study of areas larger than the heart alone, and NCFs are found in 1 of 7 patients; more than a half of them are not included in the initial CMR report. A small part is relevant, but detection can be unnecessarily stressful and harmful for patients and could increase costs. Risks of overdiagnosis or underreporting are to be taken into account. Copyrigh