The role of cardiovascular imaging to understand the different patterns of post-ischemic remodeling

Introduction: Cardiac remodeling is a relevant and unfavorable evolution of myocardial infarction, associated with increased risk of progression to overt HF. So far it is now recognized as a fundamental therapeutic target that clinicians must address from the acute event to the whole patient clinical follow-up. Cardiac Imaging is a fundamental tool for an accurate evaluation of cardiac morphology and function, and, thanks to the most recent advances in technology, clinicians are able to achieve useful predictive parameters of progressive remodeling and stratify the risk of adverse events. Since the first pioneer studies, there is actually a large amount of relevant data from the existing literature. Objectives: The present review mainly focuses on general concepts of pathophysiology and analyzes the role of past and new cardiovascular imaging parameters in predicting adverse post-ischemic remodeling phenotype.