Cardiac MRI is here, it’s hot, and hospitals that don’t use cardiac MRI could lose the chance to enter the field.
Cardiac imaging is one of the top imaging-related expenditures in the United States. Medicare data from 1993 (the most recent available) show that echocardiography was the highest imaging-related expenditure with $760.4 million in expenditures. Cardiac catheterization followed with $591.7 million. And cardiac nuclear medicine and angioplasty both topped the $200 million mark in 1993.
Despite these numbers, clinical cardiac MR imaging is remarkably underutilized. Why? One reason is the lack of cardiac MR experts in this country.
Vivian S. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., ranks high among the few. Currently, associate professor of Radiology and director of Cardiothoracic MR Imaging in the Department of Radiology at New York University Medical Center (New York, N.Y.), Lee earned her medical degree with honors at Harvard Medical School (Cambridge, Mass.) after receiving a Ph.D. in medical engineering at Oxford University, (Oxford, England). She completed her residency in diagnostic radiology at Duke University (Durham, N.C.), where she served as chief resident, and completed her fellowship in body MRI and thoracic imaging at New York University. Lee’s primary areas of interest are in functional MR imaging in the body, particularly using MR to measure blood flow and function in cardiovascular disease and in the kidneys.
Please refer to the July 2001 issue for the complete story. For information on article reprints, contact Martin St. Denis
