Table 1 Clinical score criteria

5 - Excellent

Blood pool is hyper intense with excellent contrast against the myocardium; myocardium is uniformly bright throughout the cardiac cycle with little evidence of flashing.

Papillary and endocardial trabeculae are clearly visible in the bright backdrop of the blood pool.

Image is nearly artifact free.

4 - Good

Blood pool is significantly brighter than the myocardium, or myocardial signal intensity is fairly uniform throughout the cardiac cycle.

Papillary and endocardial trabeculae are visible but somewhat blurred during the cardiac cycle.

Some motion artifact is present but does not affect overall image quality.

3 - Moderate

Image is of diagnostic quality but features significant loss of blood to myocardial contrast or noticeable variation in myocardial signal throughout the cardiac cycle.

Myocardial walls are barely distinguishable from endocardial trabeculae.

Motion artifacts are visible, but image is still of diagnostic quality.

2 - Poor

Blood-to-myocardial contrast is poor, but the image is still of diagnostic quality.

Myocardial walls and endocardial trabeculae are significantly blurred.

Images are nearly nondiagnostic with significant artifacts.

1 - Nondiagnostic

Blood-to-myocardial contrast is poor; image was deemed nondiagnostic.

Blood-to-myocardial edge definition is poor; image was deemed nondiagnostic.

Image is of nondiagnostic quality.