Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: Ready for Clinical Practice and Guidelines?

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive disease with high mortality. A greater understanding of the physiology and function of the cardiovascular system in PAH will help improve survival. This review covers the latest advances within cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) regarding diagnosis, evaluation of treatment, and prognostication of patients with PAH. RECENT FINDINGS: New CMR measures that have been proven relevant in PAH include measures of ventricular and atrial volumes and function, tissue characterization, pulmonary artery velocities, and arterio-ventricular coupling. SUMMARY: CMR markers carry prognostic information relevant for clinical care such as treatment response and thereby can affect survival. Future research should investigate if CMR, as a non-invasive method, can improve existing measures or even provide new and better measures in the diagnosis, evaluation of treatment, and determination of prognosis of PAH.