September 2013

The objective of this document is to provide a consensus expert opinion on the appropriate use of multimodality imaging in the diagnosis and management of pericardial diseases. This document will allow clinicians to weigh the evidence on the strengths and weaknesses of a particular imaging modality in the evaluation and management of pericardial diseases. Of note, there have been only a small number of randomized clinical trials on pericardial diseases; thus, we use a consensus of expert opinions in this report and do not attempt to use the standard level-of-evidence grading system (Levels A–C). The document focuses on multimodality imaging of pericardial diseases, including echocardiography, computed tomography (CT), and cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR), and is not comprehensive with regard to clinical presentation and treatment, which have been discussed in recent reviews