Background
CTCA is emerging as a noninvasive technique to detect coronary atherosclerosis.
Methods
We conducted a prospective, multicenter, multivendor study involving 360 symptomatic patients with acute and stable anginal syndromes who were between 50 and 70 years of age and were referred for diagnostic conventional coronary angiography (CCA) from September 2004 through June 2006. All patients underwent a nonenhanced calcium scan and a CTCA, which was compared with CCA. No patients or segments were excluded because of impaired image quality attributable to either coronary motion or calcifications. Patient-, vessel-, and segment-based sensitivities and specificities were calculated to detect or rule out significant CAD, defined as <50% lumen diameter reduction.
Results
The prevalence among patients of having at least 1 significant stenosis was 68%. In a patient-based analysis, the sensitivity for detecting patients with significant CAD was 99% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 98% to 100%), specificity was 64% (95% CI: 55% to 73%), positive predictive value was 86% (95% CI: 82% to 90%), and negative predictive value was 97% (95% CI: 94% to 100%). In a segment-based analysis, the sensitivity was 88% (95% CI: 85% to 91%), specificity was 90% (95% CI: 89% to 92%), positive predictive value was 47% (95% CI: 44% to 51%), and negative predictive value was 99% (95% CI: 98% to 99%).
Conclusions
Among patients in whom a decision had already been made to obtain CCA, 64-slice CTCA was reliable for ruling out significant CAD in patients with stable and unstable anginal syndromes. A positive 64-slice CTCA scan often overestimates the severity of atherosclerotic obstructions and requires further testing to guide patient management.
J Am Coll Cardiol 2008;52:2135–44
Meijboom et al report on another multicenter trial evaluating cardiac CT in patients with clinical suspicion of having significant CAD.
The results are in line with the other 2 studies (Accuracy [see January 2009] and Core 64 [see December 2008]), indicating that cardiac CT might be useful for the exclusion of significant lesions. The authors highlight the current limitation of cardiac CT to accurately quantify stenosis leading to misclassifications especially in the differentiation of significant from non-significant lesions.
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