It has been known for many years that regional ischemia results in myocardial wall motion abnormalities.<sup>8 Boxley W.A., Reeves T.J. Abnormal regional myocardial performance in coronary artery disease Prog Cardiovasc Dis 1971 ;  13 : 405-421

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti, 19 Herman M.V., Gorlin R. Implications of left ventricular asynergy Am J Cardiol 1969 ;  23 : 538-547  [cross-ref]

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti</sup> Precise and accurate methods for measuring local three-dimensional myocardial motion with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging have been developed using presaturation tagging patterns<sup>3 Axel L., Dougherty L. MR imaging of motion with spatial modulation of magnetization Radiology 1989 ;  171 : 841-845

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti, 59 Zerhouni E.A., Parish D.M., Rogers W.J. , e al. Human heart: Tagging with MR imaging—a method for noninvasive assessment of myocardial motion Radiology 1988 ;  169 : 59-63

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti, 60 Zerhouni EA, Parrish DN: Tissue tagging of the human heart by MRI. US Patent 4953554, 1990

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti</sup> and velocity encoded phase maps.<sup>46 Pelc N.J., Herfkens R.J., Shimakawa A. , e al. Phase contrast cine magnetic resonance imaging [review] Magn Reson Q 1991 ;  7 : 229-254

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti, 54 Wedeen V.J. Magnetic resonance imaging of myocardial kinematics: Technique to detect, localize, and quantify the strain rates of the active human myocardium Magn Reson Med 1992 ;  27 : 52-67  [cross-ref]

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti</sup> There has been tremendous improvement in the quality of clinical cardiac MR imaging studies with the advent of breath-hold cine acquisitions with segmented k-space<sup>2 Atkinson D.J., Edelman R.R. Cineangiography of the heart in a single breath hold with a segmented turboflash sequence Radiology 1991 ;  178 : 357-360

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti</sup> and spiral scanning.<sup>36 Meyer C.H., Hu R.S., Nishimura D.G. , e al. Fast spiral coronary artery imaging Magn Reson Med 1992 ;  28 : 202-213  [cross-ref]

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti</sup> The combination of breath-hold imaging with tagging<sup>32 McVeigh E.R., Atalar E. Cardiac tagging with breath-hold cine MRI Magn Reson Med 1992 ;  28 : 318-327  [cross-ref]

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti</sup> and velocity encoding sequences has made the application of wall motion measurements in patients a simple and reproducible examination. The fundamental improvement in regional function measurement of these techniques over echocardiography is twofold: (1) The same volume of myocardium can be tracked over the heart cycle to map the function in a specific region, and (2) precise quantitative estimates of myocardial shortening can be computed from the images. This article reviews the existing methods for obtaining regional myocardial function measurements with MR imaging.