Dear AuntMinnie Member,
A newly published head-to-head comparison of CT angiography and cardiac catheterization has CTA looking good. The results are particularly impressive, as the study used older 16-slice CT scanners rather than the newer 64-slice models.
Published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association, the study directly compared CTA with cardiac cath angiography, cardiac imaging's gold standard, in 103 patients. We're featuring an article on the study by staff writer Eric Barnes in our Cardiac Imaging Digital Community this week.
The researchers found that CTA had good agreement with cardiac cath in detecting more occluded stenotic lesions, missing only a couple of patients with coronary artery disease. It also performed well in characterizing patients with clinically insignificant stenoses.
While the authors found some room for improvement in cardiac CTA, the move to 64-slice cardiac scanning is likely to render these concerns moot.
The study undoubtedly will add legitimacy to cardiac CT's challenge as a less-invasive alternative to cardiac cath. But it will also further fuel the debate over who controls cardiac CT imaging, as cardiologists gain interest in this promising new technology.
Read all about the story by clicking here, and follow the ongoing debate on cardiac scanning in our Cardiac Imaging Digital Community, at cardiac.auntminnie.com.
