Applications of multislice coronary computed tomographic angiography to percutaneous coronary intervention: how did we ever do without it?

By providing data previously available only by intravascular ultrasound, 64-slice multidetector computed tomographic angiography (CTA) will impact percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in multiple areas: (1) pre-PCI patient selection; (2) identification of significant lesions; (3) in-stent restenosis; (4) procedure planning: stent sizing, choice of intervention, and equipment, chronic total occlusions, 3D-CTA in the catheterization laboratory; (5) plaque evaluation and identification of high-risk lesions; (6) postcatheterization decisions, and (7) structural heart disease. The likely outcome is transformation of the catheterization laboratory into a streamlined interventional suite, utilizing on-line CTA data in an interactive format.