Keywords:
Tissue characterisation, Arteriosclerosis, Normal variants, CT-Quantitative, CT-Angiography, Cardiovascular system, Cardiac
Authors:
R. Ma, D. Ties, G. J. Pelgrim, R. van Dijk, M. van Assen, G. Sidorenkov, P. van der Harst, R. Vliegenthart; Groningen/NL
Methods and Materials
In this retrospective study, PCATMA was measured on CCTA in 192 patients suspected of coronary artery disease, but without coronary plaque on CCTA, scanned between 2015 to 2017 at a single academic center, using a third-generation dual-source CT system (Somatom Force; Siemens Healthineers, Forchheim, Germany). PCATMA measurements were performed semi-automatically around the proximal segment of the three main coronary arteries on curved planar reformats (Figure 1). In 60 coronary vessels from 20 randomly selected patients, intra- and inter-observer agreement was determined. Multivariable regression analysis was used to test the association of age, sex and BMI with PCATMA. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to compare PCATMA between the coronary arteries; paired t-test was used to compare the PCATMA between pairs of the coronary arteries. One-way ANOVA test was used for the PCATMA comparison of different kV groups. The intra-reader and inter-reader agreement of PCATMA measurements were validated using intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) test.