Noninvasive cardiac imaging is an integral part of the practice of current clinical cardiology. During the past three decades a number of distinctly different noninvasive imaging techniques of the heart, such as radionuclide imaging, echocardiography, magnetic resonance imaging, and X-ray computed tomography have been developed. Remarkable progress has been made by each of these technologies in terms of technical advances, clinical procedures, and clinical applications/indications. Each technique was propelled by a devoted group of talented and dedicated investigators who explored the potential value of each technique for making clinical diagnoses and for defining clinical characteristics of heart disease that might be most useful in the management of patients. Thus.
