Heart imaging right now is to look at cardiac function and blood flow non-invasively.
At the University of Iowa, we are fortunate to have a state of the art ultrafast CT scanner, which allows us to perform movie studies of the heart while it beats. This allows us to look how well the heart beats and the overall size and shape of the heart. We also use this modality to investigate the heart for structural problems like congenital defects or cardiac tumors. The same test can be essentially used on MR, looking at morphology, size, and function. For the CT, it has very fast acquisition times, which allow us to capture images of the heart while it beats.