Noncardiac Findings in Clinical Cardiac Magnetic Resonance: Prevalence in 300 Examinations After Blind Reassessment

Purpose: To assess the prevalence of noncardiac findings (NCFs) in a consecutive series of 300 cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) studies. Methods: We retrospectively evaluated CMRs of 192 males and 108 females (42 +/- 22 years), comparing findings included in reports to those detected after focused reassessment of CMR images. Noncardiac findings were classified as relevant if additional workup was required. Results: We found 19 NCFs, 14 (4.7%) tagged as nonrelevant and 5 (1.7%) as relevant. Images' reassessment presented 45 NCFs, 26 (8.7%) nonrelevant and 16 (5.3%) relevant (P < 0.003). Conclusions: Cardiac magnetic resonance involves the study of areas larger than the heart alone, and NCFs are found in 1 of 7 patients; more than a half of them are not included in the initial CMR report. A small part is relevant, but detection can be unnecessarily stressful and harmful for patients and could increase costs. Risks of overdiagnosis or underreporting are to be taken into account.