Dear Cardiac Imaging Insider,
Dual-source CT (DSCT), introduced in 2005, can no longer be considered a fresh-faced newcomer with promising but unproven potential. Clinical experience and available published studies are sufficient to paint an accurate picture of what the technology can and cannot do.
To this end, radiologists at William Beaumont Hospital's Ministrelli Center for Advanced Cardiovascular Imaging in Royal Oak, MI, have pulled, prodded, and tweaked their protocols to optimize DSCT angiography images in a difficult group of patients. Most come directly from the emergency department, many are obese, and often they're worried with high heart rates to match. Learn what the group has achieved and what's left to improve in our Insider Exclusive story, accessible to our Insider subscribers first as always.
A companion story comes from Switzerland's University Hospital Zurich and the Zurich Center for Integrative Human Physiology. The researchers were able to accommodate a wide range of heart rates at coronary dual-source CTA, right up to about 100 bpm.
In ultrasound news, the American Society of Echocardiography has unveiled new stress echo guidelines that are definitely worth a read. The first update in more than a decade, the new standards incorporate progress in imaging equipment and stress testing, quantitative analysis, and the roles of stress echocardiography for cardiac risk stratification and assessment of myocardial viability.
Also, left atrial size adds prognostic value in echo exams, significantly increasing the risk of adverse events, according to a study from St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital and Columbia University in New York City.
Just scan through the links below for more, including a study that dims the importance of BMI versus waist size in assessing cardiac risk, another that links coronary artery disease to colon cancer risk, and a report from the recent European Society of Cardiology meeting suggesting that women with heart disease should be managed differently from men. It's all waiting for you in today's Cardiac Imaging Digital Community.
