New Insights from Major Prospective Cohort Studies with Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (CMR)

Since 1948, epidemiology studies played an important role in understanding cardiovascular disease and afforded an opportunity to learn about newer diagnostic tests. In 2000, the MESA Study incorporated several advanced cardiovascular imaging modalities including cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and coronary artery calcium scans. The decade of follow-up enabled prognosis studies, an important step beyond association studies. In brief, left ventricular hypertrophy by cardiac MRI predicted incident heart failure and stroke. In the MESA Study, coronary artery calcium was a better predictor of coronary artery disease end points than the non-contrast-enhanced MRI scan. In the ICELAND MI substudy of the AGES-Reykjavik Study, a contrast-enhanced MRI scan detected many more unrecognized myocardial infarctions (MIs) (UMIs) than detected by electrocardiography and documented these UMI had adverse prognostic significance. Thus, cardiac MRI has been successfully incorporated into large population studies and shown added value over conventional measurements of cardiovascular disease.