Cardiac Imaging in Dialysis Patients

Abstract There is a well-established, yet unexplained high prevalence of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in individuals with End Stage Kidney Disease on dialysis. Potential etiologies include changes in cardiac structure and function, with increased left ventricular mass index as the best established cardiac structural change associated with this increase in mortality. However, in recent years, new echocardiographic and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging techniques have emerged that may provide novel markers that may better explain the mechanisms underlying the cardiovascular morbidity and mortality observed in End Stage Kidney Disease. This review outlines advances in cardiac imaging and the current status of imaging modalities, including echocardiography, cardiac MRI, and cardiac Positron Emission Tomography (PET), to identify dialysis patients at high risk for cardiovascular mortality.