New cardiac magnetic resonance imaging modalities aid in the detection of myocardial fibrosis.

Heart failure (HF) is the end stage of many cardiovascular diseases, in which left ventricular (LV) function and structural remodeling are unable to meet the bodyu0027s cardiac‐output demand. The burden of HF has reached an epidemic scale, with more than 20 million individuals affected worldwide (Roger 2013). Despite dramatic improvements in the clinical management of this disease, our ability to identify HF in its early stages and appropriately risk‐stratify patients for suitable treatments remains limited. As such, there has been an ongoing search for new and improved biomarkers to help us identify early disease and categorize HF into its various stages, while in tandem, advancements in imaging methods are improving our detection of structural and functional derangements resulting from various etiologies. The collective outcome of such efforts will be an improved ability to diagnose, stage, risk‐stratify, and manage HF from early subclinical manifestations to the full‐blown syndrome.In this study, Lottonen‐Raikaslehto and colleagues (Lottonen‐Raikaslehto et al. 2017) demonstrate that the cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging modality, T1 longitudinal relaxation in the rotating frame (known as T1 ρ ), can be potentially used as a sensitive method to detect diffuse fibrosis in the heart, indicating that this technique may be a valuable addition to the …