- AI
- Molecular Imaging
- CT
- X-Ray
- Ultrasound
- MRI
- Facility Management
- Mammography
Dual-source CT lowers barriers to comprehensive exam
Innovative cardiovascular imagers are driving CT toward a golden era when a single comprehensive imaging exam can answer all the essential questions to diagnose and characterize coronary artery disease and then recommend appropriate treatment.
Innovative cardiovascular imagers are driving CT toward a golden era when a single comprehensive imaging exam can answer all the essential questions to diagnose and characterize coronary artery disease and then recommend appropriate treatment.
Dr. Balázs Ruzsics and colleagues at the Medical College of South Carolina have moved the field close to that goal with an imaging protocolperformed on a dual-source Definition CT scanner.
The contrast-enhanced CT angiographic dimension of the procedure diagnoses the presence and severity of sclerotic coronary artery disease. Myocardial blood pool mapping demonstrates the extent of myocardial ischemia associated with the occlusions. Amazingly, imaging data making both applications possible are gathered during the short breath-hold of a single 15-second scan.
The South Carolina group's experience with a 74-year-old woman with suspected CAD was described in the March 4 issue of Circulation (2008;117;1244-1245).
The retrospectively ECG-gated, contrast-enhanced procedure was performed with one-third-second gantry rotations, 0.2 pitch, and 32 × 2 × 0.6-mm collimation. One x-ray tube operated at 150 mA/rotation at 140 kV, while the other tube generated a 165 mA/rotation at 80 kV.
Investigators employed the unique differences in the x-ray absorption rates of separate sets of images based on 80 kV and 140 kV spectra to map the iodine content within the myocardium.
The resulting blood perfusion patterns were superimposed on gray-scale multiplanar reformats in short-axis and long-axis views.
A myocardial blood pool deficit (arrows in figures) associated with ischemia from the diagonal branch appears in the anteriolateral wall of the left ventricle. It correlated with a perfusion deficit that appeared in the short-axis view of a rest SPECT thallium perfusion study of the subject.
Though the protocol needs more testing, the case study demonstrates the Medical College of South Carolina group is close to making one fast dual-source scan play the role that is now clinically performed by several modalities to definitively diagnose coronary artery disease.
-By James Brice
MRI-Based AI Radiomics Model Offers 'Robust' Prediction of Perineural Invasion in Prostate Cancer
July 26th 2024A model that combines MRI-based deep learning radiomics and clinical factors demonstrated an 84.8 percent ROC AUC and a 92.6 percent precision-recall AUC for predicting perineural invasion in prostate cancer cases.
Breast MRI Study Examines Common Factors with False Negatives and False Positives
July 24th 2024The absence of ipsilateral breast hypervascularity is three times more likely to be associated with false-negative findings on breast MRI and non-mass enhancement lesions have a 4.5-fold likelihood of being linked to false-positive results, according to new research.
Can Polyenergetic Reconstruction Help Resolve Streak Artifacts in Photon Counting CT?
July 22nd 2024New research looking at photon-counting computed tomography (PCCT) demonstrated significantly reduced variation and tracheal air density attenuation with polyenergetic reconstruction in contrast to monoenergetic reconstruction on chest CT.
