Dear AuntMinnie Member,
Calcium scoring has become an important tool in detecting patients with suspected heart disease, but the technique is limited by low specificity -- many patients who have coronary calcium may not necessarily also have heart disease.
Enter multislice CT angiography, which when used in combination with calcium scoring has the potential to offer a test with both high sensitivity and high specificity. That's according to an article we're featuring this week in our Cardiac Imaging Digital Community by staff writer Wayne Forrest.
In a recent study, German researchers combined calcium scoring with 64-slice CTA to assess a group of patients with intermediate calcium scores. Using both techniques together improved overall sensitivity and specificity, and held out the hope that patients without heart disease could be diverted from conventional angiography. Get all the details by clicking here.
In another article we're featuring in the community this week, contributing writer Jeff Haglund offers a discussion of the challenges involved in integrating disparate cardiology and radiology PACS networks.
Such integration efforts are increasingly important as facilities move to tear down walls between silos of medical data stored in different departments, and instead establish enterprise-wide integrated image and information networks. Read more about it by clicking here.
