Non-invasive characterization of coronary artery atherosclerotic plaque using dual energy CT: Explanation in ex-vivo samples

Definition of the margin of major coronary artery bifurcations during radiotherapy with electrocardiograph-gated 4D-CT

“…The development of atherosclerosis is closely related to endothelial cells and blood flow dynamics [11]. The permeability of endothelial cells to macromolecules in regions of arterial branching or curvature is increased, resulting in low-density lipoprotein accumulation and thus the formation of atherosclerosis plaques [12,13]. Atherosclerosis is accelerated by radiation in medium to large coronary arteries, and several studies have reported coronary arterial events after radiotherapy.…”

Development of a method to determine electron density and effective atomic number of high atomic number solid materials using dual-energy computed tomography

“…The samples used were of high effective atomic number range, and hence, it establishes the validity of the method in higher atomic number rangeWe have developed the method of calibration using the solid samples rather than liquid chemicals unlike in previous works. [131428]The Rayleigh effect is taken into account in this study for the calculation of exponents.The accuracy of the developed method was checked using those chemicals which were not the part of the calibration method. These chemicals samples were called validators…”

“…In this paper, we have tried to devise a method which is not only independent of the machine dependent factors[121314] but also in this method, determination of electron density does not interfere with the determination of effective atomic number or vice versa. The machine dependent factors such as the source spectrum (which may be influenced by various factors such as tube's inherent and additional filtration,[14] tube current, and tube accelerating voltage) and detector efficiency have been taken care of by this novel method.…”

How accurate is atherosclerosis imaging by coronary computed tomography angiography?

“…38 Dual energy CT (DECT) may have a potential to distinguish between vulnerable and stable plaques. 40 In the study of 32 ex-vivo coronary arteries scanned by DECT, the energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) provided high accuracy and area under the curve to differentiate vulnerable plaque from stable plaque, with 87% and 0.85, respectively. 40 Recent studies demonstrated good agreement for the reproducibility and reliability of quantitative assessment of coronary atherosclerosis volume by QCT when using different radiation energy.…”

“…40 In the study of 32 ex-vivo coronary arteries scanned by DECT, the energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) provided high accuracy and area under the curve to differentiate vulnerable plaque from stable plaque, with 87% and 0.85, respectively. 40 Recent studies demonstrated good agreement for the reproducibility and reliability of quantitative assessment of coronary atherosclerosis volume by QCT when using different radiation energy. 41 From the analysis of 95 patients who underwent serial coronary CTAs with same kilovoltage (kVp) within 90 days, length and volume of coronary plaque didn't statically differ between the two scans in per-segment analysis.…”