Prevalence of noncardiac findings on low dose 64-slice computed tomography used for attenuation correction in myocardial perfusion imaging with SPECT.

Electrocardiogram (ECG)-triggered, low dose computed tomography (CT) is increasingly used for attenuation correction in myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) with SPECT. The purpose of the study was to assess the prevalence of relevant noncardiac findings in the field-of-view of such attenuation correction CT scans. Five hundred and eighty-two consecutive patients (211 female, 371 male; mean age: 64 +/- 11 years; BMI: 27.

Impact of hypertension on the diagnostic accuracy of coronary angiography with computed tomography.

Objective: Hypertension induces coronary artery disease (CAD) and progression of arterial wall calcification. As coronary calcifications may cause artefacts in 64-slice computed tomography coronary angiography (CTCA), we sought to determine the diagnostic accuracy of CTCA in patients with and without arterial hypertension.

Methods: Eighty-five consecutive patients with suspected CAD underwent CTCA, calcium-scoring and conventional coronary angiography, and were grouped as hypertensive (28 women, 31 men, mean age 65 +/- 9 years, age range 49-82 years) or normotensive patients (10 women, 16 men, mean age 62 +/- 11 years, age range 39-77 years).