Coronary Artery CT Angiography for Plaque Imaging

Abstract

Cardiac CT is becoming a mainstream and integral part of many cardiology practices based on a vast base of literature supporting and validating its clinical utility. As the technology continues to advance, coronary imaging has improved in stride. In the next several years, cardiac CT may become the "gatekeeper" of cardiac testing, surpassing the more common and widespread nuclear testing as the initial strategy in evaluating ischemia. Unfortunately, in spite of an arsenal of tests available to detect clinically significant stable coronary artery disease, many people continue to suffer acute myocardial infarction and other acute coronary syndromes, leading to significant morbidity and mortality due to unstable coronary artery disease. These unstable, "vulnerable" plaques continue to plague cardiologists across the globe. The ability to identify vulnerable plaque is a step in the right direction toward therapy. It is in this particular arena that advancements in cardiac CT technology may bear the most fruit. A growing body of evidence supporting the utility of cardiac CT in plaque imaging has emerged and has demonstrated that potentially unstable coronary artery disease is able to be identified accurately and noninvasively.