ORONARY COMPUTED TOMOgraphic (CT) angiography is a noninvasive test that enables direct visualization of coronary artery disease (CAD) and correlates favorably with invasive coronary angiography (ICA) for measures of stenosis severity. 1 However, CT cannot determine the hemodynamic significance of CAD, and even among CTidentified obstructive stenoses confirmed by ICA, fewer than half are ischemia-causing. 2,3 These findings underscore an unreliable relationship of stenosis severity to ischemia and have raised concerns that use of CT may pre-cipitate unnecessary ICA and coronary revascularization for patients who do not have ischemia. 4,5 These concerns stem from recent randomized trials that have identified no survival benefit for patients who undergo angiographically based coronary revascularization. 6,7 As an ad-junct to ICA, fractional flow reserve (FFR) has served as a useful tool to determine the likelihood that a coronary For editorial comment see p 1269.

Machine learning combining clinical and CCTA data was found to predict 5-year ACM significantly better than existing clinical or CCTA metrics alone.

Among individuals without known CAD, nonobstructive and obstructive CAD by CCTA are associated with higher rates of mortality, with risk profiles differing for age and sex. Importantly, absence of CAD is associated with a very favorable prognosis.

Background Guidelines for the management of patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) rely on the age, sex, and angina typicality-based pre-test probabilities of angiographically significant CAD derived from invasive coronary angiography (“Guideline Probabilities”). Reliability of Guideline Probabilities has not been investigated in patients referred to noninvasive CAD testing. Methods and Results We identified 14048 consecutive patients with suspected CAD who underwent coronary computed tomographic angiography (CTA) Angina typicality was recorded using accepted criteria. Pre-test likelihoods of CAD with ≥50% diameter stenosis (CAD50) and ≥70% diameter stenosis (CAD70) were calculated using Guideline Probabilities. CTA images were evaluated by ≥1 expert reader to determine presence of CAD50 and CAD70. Typical angina was associated with the highest prevalence of CAD50 (40% in men, 19% in women) and CAD70 (27% men, 11% women) when compared to other symptom categories (p<0.001 for all). Observed CAD50 and CAD70 prevalence were substantially lower than that predicted by Guideline Probabilities in the overall population (18% vs. 51% for CAD50, 10% vs. 42% for CAD70, p<0.001), driven by pronounced differences in patients with atypical angina (15% vs. 47% for CAD50, 7% vs. 37% for CAD70) and typical angina (29% vs. 86% for CAD50, 19% vs. 71% for CAD70). Marked overestimation of disease prevalence by Guideline Probabilities was found at all participating centers and across all sex and age subgroups. Conclusion In this multinational study of patients referred for coronary CTA, determination of pre-test likelihood of angiographically significant CAD by the invasive angiography-based Guideline Probabilities greatly overestimates the actual prevalence of disease.