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Identifying Coronary Artery Calcification on Non-gated Computed Tomography Scans
04:40

Identifying Coronary Artery Calcification on Non-gated Computed Tomography Scans

Published on: August 28, 2018

Assessment of Agatston coronary artery calcium score using contrast-enhanced CT coronary angiography

Noortje van der Bijl1, Raoul M S Joemai, Jacob Geleijns

  • 1Department of Radiology, Leiden University Medical Center, C2-S, Albinusdreef 2, 2333 ZA Leiden, The Netherlands.

AJR. American Journal of Roentgenology
|November 25, 2010
PubMed

Insights

Coronary artery calcium can be accurately detected using CT coronary angiography (CTA). Agatston scores from CTA correlate well with traditional calcium scores but tend to underestimate higher values.

Area of Science:

  • Cardiology
  • Radiology
  • Medical Imaging

Background:

  • Coronary artery calcium (CAC) scoring is crucial for cardiovascular risk assessment.
  • Traditional CAC scoring uses unenhanced computed tomography (CT).
  • CT coronary angiography (CTA) is increasingly used for coronary artery evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the derivation of Agatston scores from CTA examinations.
  • To compare Agatston scores derived from CTA with traditional unenhanced CT calcium scores.
  • To assess the diagnostic performance of CTA for detecting coronary calcium.

Main Methods:

  • Fifty patients with a CT calcium score of zero and 50 with a score of 1 or greater were included.
  • Agatston scores were calculated from both unenhanced CT and CTA using 3.0-mm slices.
  • Method agreement, interobserver agreement, and diagnostic performance were evaluated.

Main Results:

  • CTA detected coronary artery calcium in 43-46 patients with positive CT calcium scores.
  • Zero scores were confirmed in 98-100% of patients with CTA.
  • Intraclass correlation between CT calcium score and CTA was 0.78 and 0.62; higher scores were underestimated by CTA.

Conclusions:

  • Coronary artery calcium can be detected on CTA images with high accuracy.
  • Agatston scores derived from CTA show good correlation and reproducibility with unenhanced CT calcium scores.
  • CTA systematically underestimates higher Agatston scores.
Abstract

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