Role of cardiac computed tomography in patients with suspected coronary artery disease: interaction with nuclear cardiology

Abstract

Coronary computed tomography (CT) angiography (CTA) and myocardial perfusion single photon emission CT (SPECT, or MPS) provide complementary information on vascular structure and myocardial perfusion. In patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), the combination of both methods is helpful for disease detection and therapeutic strategy planning. This article addresses the utility of coronary CTA with current 64-row multidetector CT instruments, MPS, and the combination of these methods in the evaluation of CAD.

Multidetector CT coronary angiography for patient triage to invasive coronary angiography: Performance and cost in ambulatory patients with equivocal or suspected inaccurate noninvasive stress tests

“…Multidetector CT angiography (MDCTA) noninvasively and accurately visualizes coronary artery anatomy [4][5][6]. This anatomic assessment may permit better triage in selected patients with equivocal or suspected inaccurate noninvasive test results [4].…”

“…This anatomic assessment may permit better triage in selected patients with equivocal or suspected inaccurate noninvasive test results [4]. Because of the good correla-tion of MDCTA with invasive coronary angiography, we evaluated its potential clinical utility in a population who had undergone noninvasive stress testing and compared economic cost with and without MDCTA in the triage role, in comparison with noninvasive stress tests [6][7][8][9].…”