Publications by authors named "M A Loudon"
Importance: Low-flow severe aortic stenosis (AS) has higher mortality than severe AS with normal flow. The conventional definition of low-flow AS is an indexed stroke volume (SVi) by echocardiography less than 35 mL/m2. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) is the reference standard for quantifying left ventricular volumes and function from which SVi by CMR can be derived.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: We surveyed UK practice of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) "Recent onset chest pain" guidance (CG95, 2016), stratified by sex. We looked for sex-related differences in referral to computed tomographic coronary angiography (CTCA) and subsequent functional imaging (FI), invasive coronary angiography (ICA) and revascularisation.
Methods: This was a prospective analysis of CTCA practice in 8 UK centres between 2018 and 2020.
Article Synopsis
- The study assessed how well UK healthcare practices adhered to NICE guidelines for diagnosing recent-onset chest pain, specifically evaluating the effectiveness of CT coronary angiography (CTCA) and its subsequent use of invasive coronary angiography (ICA).
- Conducted in nine UK centers from January 2018 to March 2020, the analysis involved 5,293 patients, showing a high diagnostic success rate (96%) for CTCA, with significant data collected on coronary artery disease and the rates of ICA and revascularisation.
- The results indicated that while CTCA is effective in ruling out the need for further tests, there is a concerning trend of ICA overuse, as nearly half of the ICA procedures did not result in revascularisation