Cardiac computed tomography: from anatomy to function

Abstract

Ischaemic heart disease (IHD) is one of the world’s leading causes of morbidity and mortality. Likewise, the diagnosis and risk stratification of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) have always been based on the detection of the presence and extent of ischaemia by physical or pharmacological stress tests with or without the aid of imaging methods (e.g. exercise stress, test, stress echocardiography, single-photon emission computed tomography, or stress cardiac magnetic resonance). These methods show high performance to assess obstructive CAD, whilst they do not show accurate power to detect non-obstructive CAD. The introduction into clinical practice of coronary computed tomography angiography, the only non-invasive method capable of analyzing the coronary anatomy, allowed to add a crucial piece in the puzzle of the assessment of patients with suspected or chronic IHD. The current review evaluates the technical aspects and clinical experience of coronary computed tomography in the evaluation of atherosclerotic burden with a special focus about the new emerging application such as functional relevance of CAD with fractional flow reserve computed tomography (CT)-derived (FFRct), stress CT perfusion, and imaging inflammatory makers discussing the strength and weakness of each approach.

Evaluation of functional significance of coronary arteries stenoses with estimation of fractional flow reserve based on computed tomography angiography data

“…Алгоритм метода HeartFlow FFR-CT совершенствовался постепенно. Первоначально выраженный кальциноз являлся ограничением метода, в последующем это было преодолено [13]. В пилотное исследование DISCOVER-FLOW было включено 103 пациента с предполагаемой или известной ИБС и выявленными по данным КТА стенозами КА ≥50%, проанализировано 159 КА.…”