Cardiac MRI creates both still and moving images of the heart and major blood vessels. Doctors use cardiac MRI to get images of the beating heart and to look at its structure and function. These images can help them decide the best way to treat people who have heart problems. Cardiac MRI can help explain results from other diagnostic procedures such as CT scans or nuclear stress tests. Cardiac MRI is a non-invasive procedure and does not use radiation or iodinated contrast agent to generate the images.

Charter Radiology is one of the only outpatient centers in Howard and Baltimore counties to offer this specialized MRI service.
Cardiac MRI is used to help diagnose and assess may cardiac diseases and conditions including:

• Coronary heart disease
• Damage caused by a heart attack (infarct)
• Heart failure
• Heart valve problems
• Pericarditis (a condition in which the membrane, or sac around the heart is inflamed)
• Cardiac tumors
• Congenital heart defects (heart defects present at birth)