Authors' recommendations: The assessment of cardiac function, valvular morphology, and quantification of valvular stenosis and regurgitation are the most important imaging tasks in valvular heart disease. One HTA report assessed the use of MRI in patients with various heart diseases, including aortic stenosis and mitral stenosis; while majority of the patients enrolled in the three non-randomized trials had aortic stenosis. Thus, we were not able to evaluate MRI in patients with other valvular diseases, such as mitral regurgitation.According to the available evidence, MRI can produce images with better quality as compared to echocardiography. Image quality was not compared between MRI and catheterization. There was a trend for MRI to slightly overestimate the value of AVA, which needs to be taken into account along with other clinical considerations. Thus, there is evidence that MRI may be an option in evaluating patients with aortic stenosis given its advantages such as non-invasiveness, ability to provide good quality images, and high diagnostic accuracy.However, additional, well-designed clinical studies are required in order to provide more rigorous evidence on the clinical effectiveness of MRI in evaluating aortic stenosis as well as other valvular heart diseases.

Project Status: Completed

URL for project: http://www.cadth.ca/media/pdf/htis/L0086_MRI%20for%20Patients%20with%20Valvular%20Heart%20Disease_final.pdf

Year Published: 2009

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: Canada

Organisation Name: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health

Contact Address: 600-865 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8 Canada. Tel: +1 613 226 2553; Fax: +1 613 226 5392;

Contact Name: requests@cadth.ca

Contact Email: requests@cadth.ca

Copyright: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH)