Second Edition
EDITORS:
Pim J de Feyter
Gabriel P Krestin
CO-EDITORS:
Filippo Cademartiri
Carlos van Mieghem
Bob Meijboom
Nico Mollet
Koen Nieman
Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgments
- Basic principles
- Image post-processing
- Radiation issues
- Coronary imaging: normal coronary anatomy
- Coronary angiogram evaluation
- Coronary pathology relevant to coronary imaging
- Coronary stenosis: description and quantification
- Coronary stenosis
- Coronary plaque imaging
- Coronary calcification
- Assessment of coronary stents
- Coronary bypass graft imaging
- Pre-percutaneous coronary intervention assessment: chronic total occlusions and magnetic navigation
- Coronary artery anomalies in the adult
- Cardiac masses, intracardiac thrombi, and pericardial abnormalities
- The great thoracic vessels
- Computed tomography in the emergency department
- Preoperative assessment of the coronary tree before cardiac valve surgery
- Assessment of left ventricular function and viability
- Computed tomography and electrophysiology
- Non-cardiac findings on cardiac computed tomography
- Artifacts
- Contrast enhancement in coronary angiography
- The future
Preface:
Since the first edition of Computed Tomography of the Coronary Arteries was published in 2005, knowledge about CT technology has significantly increased, which prompted us to provide an updated version of the book. Non-invasive coronary imaging using multislice CT has rapidly evolved as a diagnostic modality to detect or exclude the presence of significant coronary artery disease. In addition, multislice CT is able to provide important information about non-obstructive plaques and their tissue composition, including whether they are noncalcified, calcified, or mixed coronary plaques. The technological improvements of CT scanners have been impressive and 64-slice CT has largely superseded four- and 16-slice CT scanners, while prototype 256- or 320-slice CT scanners have been introduced very recently. Many reports have been published about the diagnostic performance of CT coronary angiography to detect significant coronary stenosis compared with invasive coronary angiography. These reports unanimously agree that CT coronary angiography can reliably exclude the presence of significant coronary artery disease but that the accurate detection of coronary obstructions, i.e. extent, location, and distribution, is still somewhat limited, and requires improvement in spatial and temporal resolution.
Cardiac CT has matured significantly and has attracted many radiologists and cardiologists to begin a cardiac CT program in their departments. We also believe that cardiac CT has a bright future and may become the most important non-invasive modality for the visualization of the coronary arteries.
The CT technique, although relatively straight forward, requires thorough understanding of the basic principles for accurate interpretation and clinical application of CT coronary images.
Many cardiologists and radiologists are not familiar with cardiac CT, and we believe that our book provides easy and understandable information about cardiac CT. The book is the result of close collaboration between both cardiologists and radiologists, and the contents are a reflection of the specific insights of each discipline. We clearly believe that for optimal interpretation and implementation of cardiac CT teamwork between radiologists and cardiologists is essential.
We hope that the second edition will again serve its goal as a concise, quick reference for understanding and interpreting CT coronary images.
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