The year in cardiovascular medicine 2021: imaging

Chiara Bucciarelli-Ducci; Nina Ajmone-Marsan; Marcelo Di Carli; Edward Nicol

doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehac033

The year in cardiovascular medicine 2021: imaging

Eur Heart J. 2022 Mar 31;43(13):1288-1295. doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehac033.

Authors

Chiara Bucciarelli-Ducci¹, Nina Ajmone-Marsan², Marcelo Di Carli^{3

4

5

6}, Edward Nicol¹

Affiliations

¹ Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals, Guys' and St Thomas NHS Trust and School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King's College London, London, UK.
² Department of Cardiology, Leiden University Medical Center, 2333 ZA Leiden, The Netherlands.
³ Cardiovascular Imaging Program, Department of Radiology, Heart and Vascular Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁴ Cardiovascular Imaging Program, Department of Medicine, Heart and Vascular Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁵ Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

Abstract

This article reviews the most relevant literature published in 2021 on the role of cardiovascular imaging in cardiovascular medicine. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continued to impact the healthcare landscape, resulting in reduced access to hospital-based cardiovascular care including reduced routine diagnostic cardiovascular testing. However, imaging has also facilitated the understanding of the presence and extent of myocardial damage caused by the coronavirus infection. What has dominated the imaging literature beyond the pandemic are novel data on valvular heart disease, the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) applied to imaging, and the use of advanced imaging modalities in both ischaemic heart disease and cardiac amyloidosis.

Keywords: Amyloidosis; CMR; Cardiac CT; Echocardiography; Imaging; Ischaemic heart disease; Magnetic resonance; PET; SPECT; Valvular heart disease.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Amyloidosis*
Artificial Intelligence
COVID-19*
Heart
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods
Myocardial Ischemia* / diagnosis