Era of multimodality imaging: Where do we stand?

With the recent technological advancement, the field of cardiac imaging is riding the tide of change not only for the long-standing traditional imaging procedures like echocardiography and nuclear cardiology, but also for the emerging cardiac computed tomography (CCT) and cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging. Among them, CCT and CMR are already entering the early phase of the technology being adopted for use by the majority of hospitals and physicians, and a period of rapid growth awaits as users better understand and acquire the technology. In this review, we tried to summarize the recent technical advancements, the altered recommendations and potential risks of imaging procedures with focusing to CCT and CMR, and we speculate on how change will happen in our field in the near future. With the progress that's happened in the past generation, the development of these new technologies has brought with them new roles for the cardiovascular specialist, and this has changed the pattern of clinical practice. Unfortunately, the appropriateness of performing cardiac imaging is still extraordinarily low. Imaging specialist, therefore, should be aware of the elementary physical basis, the evolving clinical indications, the differential costs, the radiation doses and the long term risks of different imaging modalities.