Coronary CT angiography in symptomatic patients

The currently best available spatial and temporal resolution for retrospectively ECG gated coronary multi-detector-row CT angiography is 0.4 mm and 165 ms, respectively. These acquisition parameters are already rather close to cardiac catheter. Studies so far compared non-invasive coronary CT and convention angiography for the detection of coronary artery stenoses. The most promising result reported by all authors was the high negative predictive value of the CTA. It now needs to be determined if CTA is a reliable tool to rule out coronary artery stenoses in a patient cohort with low likelihood of CAD, such as those with atypical chest pain or ambiguous stress test. CTA may furthermore establish as a rapid and widely available tool to detect vulnerable plaques or intracoronary thrombus in patients with acute coronary syndrome and unstable angina. In patients with chronic stable angina, tools that determine myocardial ischemia under stress such as SPECT and MRI are probably better suited to determine the relevance of coronary artery stenoses. In this particular cohort, by displaying the extent and morphology of coronary atherosclerosis, CTA may help to direct the therapy to either intervention or surgery.