Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging: a 'one-stop-shop' evaluation of myocardial dysfunction

Two decades before “one-stop-shop” cardiac MRI became a common pitch, this early review was already making it — a glimpse of an aspiration the field has spent twenty years pursuing.

The authors argued that cardiac MRI could, in a single session, assess heart function, perfusion (blood supply), viability (salvageable muscle), and ischemia — a comprehensive non-invasive workup with excellent spatial resolution. For 2002, it was a forward-looking vision of consolidating several separate tests into one.

The practical takeaway, read today, is mostly historical: it captures the early case for cardiac MRI’s breadth that later, stronger evidence would substantiate. The resistance it names — institutions invested in nuclear imaging and echo — proved durable.

We rate the evidence low: an early narrative review with no quantitative synthesis, now well over two decades old in a fast-moving field. Its clinical significance is modest and chiefly historical — a marker of where cardiac MRI’s ambitions began, valuable for context rather than current guidance. For present practice, the newer MRI reviews in this library supersede it.