Diagnostic accuracy and clinical utility of noninvasive testing for coronary artery disease.

Background: Computed tomography coronary angiography (CTCA) has become a popular noninvasive test for diagnosing coronary artery disease.

Objective: To compare the accuracy and clinical utility of stress testing and CTCA for identifying patients who require invasive coronary angiography (ICA).

Design: Observational study.

Impact of heart rate frequency and variability on radiation exposure, image quality, and diagnostic performance in dual-source spiral CT coronary angiography.

Purpose: To investigate the effect of heart rate frequency (HRF) and heart rate variability (HRV) on radiation exposure, image quality, and diagnostic performance to help detect significant stenosis (> or =50% lumen diameter reduction) by using adaptive electrocardiographic (ECG) pulsing at dual-source (DS) spiral computed tomographic (CT) coronary angiography.

Materials And Methods: Institutional review committee approval and informed consent were obtained. No prescan beta-blockers were applied.

Comparison of frequency of calcified versus non-calcified coronary lesions by computed tomographic angiography in patients with stable versus unstable angina pectoris.

Computed tomographic coronary angiography (CTCA) can noninvasively identify calcified and noncalcified coronary plaques. The aim of this study was to compare the phenotypes of all plaques and of culprit plaques between patients with unstable angina pectoris (UAP) and those with stable angina pectoris (SAP), because plaque characteristics may differ between these patients. In 110 patients with UAP and 189 with SAP from a multicenter study comparing 64-slice CTCA with conventional coronary angiography, the number and phenotypes (noncalcified, mixed, and calcified) of coronary plaques were compared.