After ISCHEMIA: Is cardiac MRI a reliable gatekeeper for invasive angiography and myocardial revascularization?

This review surveys the findings of the International Study of Comparative Health Effectiveness with Medical and Invasive Approaches (ISCHEMIA) trial and puts them into a clinical perspective regarding its effect of the role of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) as a well-validated gatekeeper for invasive angiography and myocardial revascularization. Noninvasive stress testing of patients with intermediate-to-high pretest likelihood for obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) using perfusion CMR provides excellent diagnostic accuracy in detecting ischemic myocardium, and additional information from tissue characterization can guide the management of patients with stable angina toward a more individualized therapy as other non-coronary underlying causes of chest pain can be detected. Since ISCHEMIA failed to show that an invasive strategy using percutaneous coronary intervention or coronary artery bypass grafting was associated with an improved prognosis compared with initial conservative medical therapy among stable patients with moderate-to-severe ischemia, CMR as a multifaceted diagnostic imaging approach to explain patients’ symptoms should be preferred over anatomical and stress testing alone. Nevertheless, the exclusion of left main coronary artery stenosis either by coronary CT or MR angiography may be required. In conclusion, the results of the ISCHEMIA trial are in good accordance with those of the MR-INFORM trial recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, as the noninvasive management of a large proportion of patients with CAD was shown to be noninferior to current invasive strategies. Recent outcome data from trials may therefore have an impact on future guidelines to further reduce the execution of unnecessary left heart catheterizations.