[Cardiovascular Nuclear Magnetic Ressonance: present indications and future perspectives].

Nuclear Magnetic Ressonance applied to the cardiovascular area has nowadays a wide range of utilization, in the morphologic and functional assessment of the heart, pericardium, aorta and its major branches. The structure and function of myocardium and its contractility, the anatomy and function of cardiac valves and coronary artery blood flow can be easily and precisely estimated, as well as the diverse pericardial and aortic diseases. Further developments of NMR in cardiovascular area sound promising, mainly in the field of tissue characterization of atherosclerotic plaques, in the intravascular evaluation and endovascular intervention and it is expected that the technique will play a major role in the cardiovascular intervention of the near future.