Impact of iodine concentration and iodine delivery rate on contrast enhancement in coronary CT angiography: a randomized multicenter trial (CT-CON).

Objective: To compare the effect of contrast medium iodine concentration on contrast enhancement, heart rate, and injection pressure when injected at a constant iodine delivery rate in coronary CT angiography (CTA).

Methods: One thousand twenty-four patients scheduled for coronary CTA were prospectively randomized to receive one of four contrast media: iopromide 300 mg I/ml, iohexol 350 mg I/ml, iopromide 370 mg I/ml, or iomeprol 400 mg I/ml. Contrast media were delivered at an equivalent iodine delivery rate of 2.

Relative myocardial blood flow by dynamic computed tomographic perfusion imaging predicts hemodynamic significance of coronary stenosis better than absolute blood flow.

Objectives: Quantitative myocardial perfusion imaging by computed tomography (CT) was recently introduced to calculate myocardial blood flow (MBF). Because absolute MBF thresholds may be affected by technique, methodology, and the microvasculature, we investigated whether a relative measure of MBF improves accuracy to identify hemodynamically significant coronary stenosis.

Materials And Methods: In this prospective study, 42 patients (mean [SD] age, 62.

Additional diagnostic value of integrated analysis of cardiac CTA and SPECT MPI using the SMARTVis system in patients with suspected coronary artery disease.

Unlabelled: CT angiography (CTA) and SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) are complementary imaging techniques to assess coronary artery disease (CAD). Spatial integration and combined visualization of SPECT MPI and CTA data may facilitate correlation of myocardial perfusion defects and subtending coronary arteries and thus offer additional diagnostic value over either stand-alone or side-by-side interpretation of the respective datasets from the 2 modalities. In this study, we investigated the additional diagnostic value of a software-based CTA/SPECT MPI image fusion system over conventional side-by-side analysis in patients with suspected CAD.

Quantitative computed tomographic coronary angiography: does it predict functionally significant coronary stenoses?

Background: Coronary lesions with a diameter narrowing ≥50% on visual computed tomographic coronary angiography (CTCA) are generally considered for referral to invasive coronary angiography. However, similar to invasive coronary angiography, visual CTCA is often inaccurate in detecting functionally significant coronary lesions. We sought to compare the diagnostic performance of quantitative CTCA with visual CTCA for the detection of functionally significant coronary lesions using fractional flow reserve (FFR) as the reference standard.