Chronic myocardial infarction detection and characterization during coronary artery calcium scoring acquisitions.

Background: Hypoenhanced regions on multidetector CT (MDCT) coronary angiography correlate with myocardial hyperperfusion. In addition to a limited capillary density, chronic myocardial infarction (MI) commonly contains a considerable amount of adipose tissue.

Objective: We explored whether regional myocardial hypoenhancement on contrast-enhanced MDCT could be identified with standard coronary artery calcium (CAC) scoring acquisitions with noncontrast CT.