UNLABELLED: The purpose of this article is to summarize some general information about the most common types of cardio-myopathies with an emphasis on a use of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) in its diagnosis. Although characteristic CMR findings of the cardiomyopathy are generally revealed, the establishing of a clear diagnosis could be difficult. The assessment of structural myocardial abnormalities allows determination of the degree of changes in the myocardium and the prognosis of the disease. The wide range of information about the heart structure and function is feasible to achieve due to advanced techniques of magnetic resonance imaging and the ima-ging is not limited by acoustic windows as it is in case of echocardiography. The role of CMR in diagnostics of the cardiomyopathies tends to be increasingly important, cardiologists increasingly favour this examination and it is consequently becoming a standard part of a diagnostic algorithm. KEY WORDS: amyloidosis - cardiac magnetic resonance - cardiomyopathy - myocardial hypertrophy.