MR Imaging in the Morphologic Diagnosis of Congenital Heart Disease

The ability of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging to depict cardiovascular structures is especially useful in patients with congenital heart disease (CHD). While MR imaging techniques that focus on cardiac function or blood flow have not been used frequently in the evaluation of CHD, MR imaging has been useful in morphologic diagnosis of CHD. Spin-echo MR imaging can depict relevant morphologic features of most types of CHD. MR imaging provides important diagnostic information in evaluation of right ventricular outflow tract obstruction (eg, pulmonary atresia), postoperative status, pulmonary venous anomalies, and complex ventricular anomalies. MR imaging can replace angiography in some situations, including evaluation of simple defects, right ventricular outflow tract obstruction, and postoperative status. MR imaging is the modality of choice in evaluation of aortic coarctation, interrupted aortic arch, and hemitruncus. MR images in three orthogonal planes are useful in analyzing the morphology and arrangement of cardiac segments in univentricular heart, criss-cross heart, and abnormal visceroatrial situs.