One-stop combined CT angiography of coronary and craniocervical arteries: recommended as the first examination for patients suspected of coronary or craniocervical artery disease.

Objectives: To investigate the potential diagnostic value of one-stop combined CT angiography (CTA) as the first examination for patients suspected of coronary artery disease (CAD) or craniocervical artery disease (CCAD), and compare its clinical performance with two consecutive CTA scans.

Methods: Patients with suspected but unconfirmed CAD or CCAD were prospectively enrolled and grouped randomly to undergo coronary and craniocervical CTA using the combined protocol (group 1) or the consecutive protocol (group 2). Diagnostic findings were evaluated for both the targeted and non-targeted regions. The objective image quality, overall scan time, radiation dose, and contrast medium dosage were compared between the two groups.

Results: Each group enrolled 65 patients. A substantial number of lesions were found in non-targeted regions, which was 44/65 (67.7%) by patients for group 1 and 41/65 (63.1%) for group 2, reiterating the necessity of extending the scan coverage. Specifically, lesions in non-targeted regions were detected more often for patients suspected of CCAD than for those suspected of CAD (71.4% vs 61.7%). With 21.5% (~51.1 s) reduction of scan time and 21.8% (~20.8 mL) less contrast medium as compared to the consecutive protocol, high-quality images were obtained by the combined protocol.

Conclusions: One-stop combined CTA enables effective detection of lesions in non-targeted regions at a lower cost of scan time and contrast medium than two separate examinations and is thus worth taking as the first examination for patients suspected of CAD or CCAD.

Key Points: • Extending the scan range for coronary or craniocervical CTA has the potential to reveal lesions in non-targeted regions. • One-stop combined CTA as enabled on high-speed wide-detector CT delivers high-quality images at a lower cost of contrast medium and operational time than two consecutive CTA scans. • Patients with suspected but unconfirmed CAD or CCAD may benefit from the one-stop combined CTA in the first examination.