Detection of atherosclerotic coronary artery plaques by multislice spiral computed tomography in patients with acute coronary syndrome: report of 2 cases.

Multislice spiral computed tomography (MSCT) is a new non-invasive imaging technique for detecting coronary artery disease. It allows direct visualization of not only the lumen of the coronary arteries, but also plaque within the artery. Identification of soft plaques is of the utmost importance in the therapeutic decision making for patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS), including acute myocardial infarction and unstable angina pectoris.

Noninvasive assessment of coronary artery disease by multislice spiral computed tomography using a new retrospectively ECG-gated image reconstruction technique.

The present study was designed to investigate the accuracy of multislice spiral computed tomography (MSCT) in detecting coronary artery disease, compared with coronary angiography (CAG), using a new retrospectively ECG-gated reconstruction method that reduced cardiac motion artifact. The study group comprised 54 consecutive patients undergoing MSCT and CAG. MSCT was performed using a SOMATOM Volume Zoom (4-detector-row, Siemens, Germany) with slice thickness 1.

Noninvasive coronary artery imaging by multislice spiral computed tomography.

Although the excellent spatial resolution of multislice spiral computed tomography (MSCT) enables the coronary arteries to be visualized, its limited temporal resolution results in poor image reproducibility because of cardiac motion artifact (CMA) and hence limits its widespread clinical use. A novel retrospectively ECG-gated reconstruction method has been developed to minimize CMA. In 88 consecutive patients, the scan data were reconstructed using 2 retrospectively ECG-gated reconstruction methods.