Multidetector row CT coronary angiography: technique and preliminary experience

purpose to report our preliminary experience with multi-slice spiral CT coronary angiography of the coronary arteries. materials and methods 50 volunteers (mean age 61 years, range 45-72) with baseline heart rates below 70 bpm underwent multi-detector row CT coronary angiography (GE Light speed Plus, 140 kVp, 270 mA, 1.25-mm collimation, 0.5-second rotation time, high quality pitch) with retrospective ECG gating after receiving 140-150 ml of iodinated contrast medium (Iopamiro 300 mg-dl, bracco, Italy) at a flow rate of 4 ml/sec. three of the 50 patients had previously undergone coronary procedures (1 anterior descending artery stent, 1 left circumflex artery stent and 1 anterior descending artery percutaneous angioplasty) and three were undergoing follow-up examinations after by-pass surgery. the remaining 44 patients were asymptomatic and had no history of coronary artery disease. All CT angiograms were back-reconstructed from 20 to 80% of the diastolic cycle with 10% increments to establish the phase with fewer "stair-step" motion artefacts for each artery. patients with heart rates above 70 bpm were administered beta-blockers during the five days preceding the examination in doses appropriate for the patient's clinical characteristics. results the CT room occupation time ranged from 25 to 35 minutes (mean time 27') and the post-processing time from 30 to 60 minutes (mean time 40'). the left anterior descending artery was best visualised in middle diastole (70% of cardiac cycle), the circumflex artery at 60% of the cardiac cycle, and the right coronary artery at 40%. out of 132 arteries, 19 (14.4%) were considered non-assessable due to "stair-step" motion artefacts, whereas 2 (1.5%) were only partially visualised owing to the presence of extensive wall calcifications. among the 113 assessable arteries, we observed: 72 normal coronary arteries without stenosis or wall calcifications (54.5%); 28 arteries with minimal wall irregularities and stenoses below 50% (21.2%); 7 stenoses >50% involving the right coronary artery (no. 2), the anterior descending arteries (no. 4) and the left circumflex artery (no. 1) (5.3%). In the remaining 6 patients, optimal visualisation of the stents and venous and arterial surgical by-passes was obtained. conclusions although further larger-scale studies are required to compare MSCT coronary angiography with CT coronary angiography, the application of MSCT technology to the study of the coronary arteries is a promising technique with a good potential for use in routine clinical practice. in selected patients (with baseline heart rates <70 bpm, or after beta-blocker therapy) it is able to provide very interesting results and could be used as a method of choice for following patients after interventional procedures or as a mass-screening tool to select patients to be referred for coronary angiography.