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Updated: Jan 1, 2026

Identifying Coronary Artery Calcification on Non-gated Computed Tomography Scans
Published on: August 28, 2018
Prevalence of extracardiac findings in patients undergoing coronary computed tomography and additional low-dose
Morikatsu Yoshida1, Daisuke Utsunomiya2, Taihei Inoue3
1Department of Radiology, Amakusa Medical Center, Jikiba, Kameba, Amakusa city, Kumamoto, 863-0046, Japan. y_morikatsu@hotmail.com.
Purpose:
In patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD), coexisting extracardiac abnormalities have a major impact on the patient management. This study aimed to evaluate the image quality of whole-body computed tomography (CT) immediately after the coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA) and investigate the incidence of extracardiac findings in patients with suspected CAD.
Materials And Methods:
We enrolled 450 patients undergoing whole-body CT at 100 kVp and model-based iterative reconstruction immediately after the coronary CTA (Group A) and retrospectively reviewed 144 control patients who underwent conventional contrast-enhanced CT (120 kVp) with filtered back projection (Group B). We compared the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the aorta and liver and radiation dose between the two groups. Then, we evaluated the prevalence of extracardiac findings in Group A.
Results:
Compared with Group B, Group A demonstrated significantly higher aorta and liver SNR and lower radiation dose. In Group A, whole-body CT revealed 229 coexisting lesions in 165 patients, including 32 and 106 cases of oncologic and vascular diseases, respectively.
Conclusion:
Additional whole-body CT after coronary CTA may provide adequate image quality. Using additional whole-body CT, 36% of patients with suspected CAD had clinically relevant coexisting findings, including malignancy.
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