Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides noninvasive images of facial and neck fat for a variety of conditions. It accurately maps the soft tissues pre- and postoperatively, enabling surgeons to precisely and objectively assess results of soft tissue facial contouring and fat transplantation. The risks of MRI are few. It has the potential to provide aesthetic surgeons with a more "scientific" means of comparing various techniques of fat contouring.

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Functional myocardial changes which result from ischemia are typically local rather than total. For assessing such regional changes quantitatively, left ventricular angiography has been used. The ventricular image has been divided into several components which can be measured individually. In order to test the validity of such methods, left ventricles of 5 dogs were labeled with endocardial tantalum markers and the segmental myocardial motion was estimated using cineangiography. Variance analysis of beat to beat measurements of total ejection fractions was performed. Total ejection fraction demonstrated the least variation with an average 3.5 per cent, segmental myocardial shortening 15 and regional stroke volumes 13 to 18 per cent. Intermethodologic variation with different regional volume measurements was 11 to 13 per cent. Regional stroke volume calculations showed large methodologic variations in beat to beat analysis. Conclusions and clinical decisions based on such measurements should be drawn with caution.

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