In the diagnosis and treatment of coronary artery disease, an assessment of both coronary artery stenosis and myocardial ischemia are crucial, Dr. Jochen von Spiczak told AuntMinnie.com. In current clinical practice, physicians perform this assessment by viewing coronary CT angiography and CT perfusion images side by side.
A team of researchers from University Hospital Zürich led by von Spiczak developed a software tool capable of fusing images from both modalities into high-quality 3D constructs.
"Three-dimensional fusion imaging of coronary stenoses and perfusion data may ease the intuitive assignment of diseased vessels to corresponding areas of hypoperfusion," von Spiczak said. "Thereby, it may help to reduce possible false assignment of diseased vessels to supplied myocardial territories."
The group created fused 3D images of 12 patients who underwent both coronary CT angiography and CT perfusions and found that the technique was feasible in all cases.
"One of the key objectives of our method was to limit additional user interaction to an absolute minimum," Spiczak said. "Given the future implementation of a streamlined software tool, fused 3D images could be generated with an overhead of less than one minute per case, making our tool ready for application in daily clinical practice."
