The utility of cardiovascular magnetic resonance in constrictive pericardial disease.

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) has a high diagnostic accuracy for constrictive pericarditis (CP). CMR allows for high-resolution imaging of the pericardium and associated structures in any imaging plane compared with that provided by other imaging modalities. We briefly discuss the specific quantitative and qualitative CMR sequences that can be tailored to answer the clinical questions pertaining to CP, where the diagnostic yield has been proven when characteristic CMR features of CP are present. Such features allow for differentiation of CP from restrictive cardiomyopathy, where the clinical differentiation between the 2 can often be challenging.