Coronary artery calcium measurement: agreement of multirow detector and electron beam CT

The purpose of our study was to establish the most suitable algorithm to compare coronary artery calcium measurements performed with electron beam CT and multirow detector CT for the assessment of coronary artery disease.

Coronary artery screening was performed in 100 patients with both electron beam and multirow detector CT. The images were transferred to a dedicated workstation for determination of the calcium score, volume, mass, density, and number of lesions. In addition to the traditional threshold of 130 H, the score of multirow detector CT studies was reevaluated at a threshold of 90 H. Fifty-nine of the patients underwent conventional coronary catheterization. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of the different scoring algorithms for detection of significant coronary artery stenosis was performed.

The correlation between electron beam CT and multirow detector CT was high for every quantification algorithm. Determination of the score and the number of lesions with multirow detector CT revealed a systematic error of the measurement compared with electron beam CT. The areas under the curve in the receiver operating characteristic curve analyses for electron beam and multirow detector CT were similar for the score, volume, and mass, whereas they were lower for the density. No significant difference was found for the areas under the curve between scores using a 130-H and those using a 90-H threshold.

Volume and mass indexes are superior to the traditional score, density, and number of lesions for comparing the results of electron beam and multirow detector CT and for determining significant coronary artery disease.