Keywords:
Cardiac, Arteries / Aorta, Cardiovascular system, CT-Angiography, CT-High Resolution, Contrast agent-intravenous, Computer Applications-3D, CAD, Developmental disease, Congenital, Fistula
Authors:
I. Rychina, V. Makarenko, M. Shlyappo; Moscow/RU
Methods and Materials
The study included 2465 patients with MDCT angiography of the heart and coronary arteries (CA) (1479 men (60%) and 986 women (35%)).
The mean age was 45+27 years.
Computer Tomography was performed using CT scanner «SOMATOM Definition AS+» (128-slice) and iCT scanner Philips «Brilliance» (256-slice) with a slice thickness of 0.6 mm and retrospective ECG-synchronization.
Post processing included MPR,
3D and 4D reconstruction using workstation «Leonardо»,
«Extended Brilliance Workspace».
For analyzing the images of CA we used a universal standardized systematic approach.
Consistently,
we identified and described variants of insertion,
branching,
following and ending of CA; then we identified adverse morphological features associated with the risk of sudden cardiac death and potentially complicating the implementation of endovascular procedures and cardiac surgery.
We used the type of insertion from the aorta,
namely,
from the facial sinuses,
and the type of ending in the capillary channel as the absolute normality criteria for subepicardial CA,
since these criteria are not only dependent on the structure of the heart,
the great arteries and relationships of intracardiac structures,
such as looping,
and heart symmetry.