Dear CT Insider,
In an era when cardiac CT studies boast of hundreds of unsuspected incidental findings, some quite serious, Dr. Matthew Budoff's views on the subject may come as a splash of cold water -- or a breath of fresh air -- depending on how you see things.
Speaking last week at the British Institute of Radiology President's Conference in London, Budoff charged that incidental findings at coronary CT angiography (CTA) were a dead-end road that had nothing to do with cancer in well over 99% of patients. Far more often than not, he said, following up on them leads to more unsuspected findings, more costs, and potential harm to the patient.
Fortunately, Budoff offered a handy way of avoiding most extracardiac findings without not looking for them. You'll find his solution in this issue's Insider Exclusive, brought to you before it's available on our general site.
And speaking of coronary CTA, does it improve outcomes in patients at low risk of heart disease? Not according to a study from Korea and the U.S., which concluded this week that screening this population was a waste of time and money.
Then again, some studies have demonstrated quite a bit of coronary artery plaque in patients deemed at low risk of disease. And with a CT scan there's at least a chance patients armed with knowledge of their own plaque will be motivated to reduce the risk.
So look for more studies that address the issue of cardiac CT in low-risk individuals, especially as the dose continues to drop -- as it did, for example, in an Australian study that tested a technique to read the calcium score directly from the coronary CTA images, skipping the routine noncontrast calcium scan that precedes it.
We have more in store, of course. You're invited to scroll through the links below for a trove of CT news covering every scanner type and every anatomic region -- all in your CT Digital Community.
