Aims and objectives
Coronary CT angiography (CCTA) has a high diagnostic sensitivity and negative exclusion value for coronary heart disease.
As a non-invasive test,
it is expected to replace invasive coronary angiography (CAG) and intravascular ultrasound.The full model iterative reconstruction (IMR) technique is a new generation of iterative reconstruction algorithm.
In theory,
its effect of reducing noise and improving image quality is superior to filtered back projection reconstruction (FBP) technology and advanced hybrid iterative reconstruction (iDose4) technology.
In the case of low radiation dose,
image noise can be...
Methods and materials
A pulsating cardiac phantom mounted with total 12 artificial vessels with 4 different inter diameter (2.5mm,
3mm,
3.5mm and 4mm).
Artificial vessels were scanned on multi-slice CT (iCT,
Philips Healthtech) with prospective ECG-gated mode.For each diameter artificial vessels,three kinds of materials (CT value of 20HU,100HU,840HU) were inserted into vessels respectively to mimic different compositions of coronary plaque(soft,
fibrous and calcified plaque).
For each vessel,the material was arranged ladderlikely in the iodine-enhanced lumen (350HU±5 in 100KV) to simulate different stenosis severity.
The simulated heart rate was...
Results
The intra-reader average PA measured twice were (4.81±2.48,4.93±2.63) mm2,
the mean difference was (-0.12±0.36) mm2,
95%CI was -0.83 to 0.59 mm2,
the correlation coefficient for intra-reader measurements was 0.992 (P<0.001).
The inter-reader average PA were (4.81±2.48 ,4.93±2.48) mm2,
the mean difference was (-0.12±0.65) mm2,
95%CI was -1.39 to 1.15 mm2,
the correlation coefficient for inter-reader measurements was 0.966 (P<0.001).
The intra-reader average PB measured twice were (49.80±19.28,
50.08±20.02)%,
the mean difference was (-0.28±3.09)%,
95%CI was -6.34% to 5.78%,
the correlation coefficient for intra-reader measurements was...
Conclusion
Low-dose coronary CTA with IMR has good repeatability for coronary plaque burden assessment,
and can be applied to coronary CTA in clinical patients.
Personal information
Xin Huang
Yang Hou
Yue Ma
Department of Radiology,
Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University,
Shenyang,
China
References
Stolzmann P,
Schlett C L,
Maurovich-Horvat P,
et al.
Variability and accuracy of coronary CT angiography including use of iterative reconstruction algorithms for plaque burden assessment as compared with intravascular ultrasound—an ex vivo study[J].
European Radiology,
2012,
22(10):2067-2075.