We have compiled and written this textbook to highlight the clinical indications and applications of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Over the past few decades, MRI has become an essential element of decision making for many medical specialties. However, though cardiovascular diseases are a major cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world, MRI of the heart and great vessels has experienced relatively slow acceptance. In part this is due to the technical diffi culties of imaging a structure that is affected by both its own motion and that of respiration, and the effects of fl owing blood. Although the fi rst publications on cardiac MRI coincided.
