Coronary Computed Tomography Angiography to Exclude Acute Coronary Syndrome in Low-Risk Chest Pain Patients

Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) is a non-invasive imaging tool used predominantly in suspected chronic coronary artery disease (CAD) patients, due to its high negative predictive value. However, increasing focus has been placed on CCTA to manage and risk stratify acute chest pain patients in emergency departments (ED).

This scoping review summarizes the available evidence on the role of CCTA to exclude acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in low-risk acute chest pain patients, focusing on its diagnostic accuracy, safety, and application in the context of high sensitivity cardiac troponin assays (hs-cTn).

Articles published between January 2015 and March 2025 investigating CCTA use in low-risk acute chest pain patients were retrieved from Medline, Embase, Emcare, and Web of Science databases.

22 articles (13,617 patients) were retrieved. CCTA had strong diagnostic performance, with an excellent negative predictive value (99.8-100%) and sensitivity (94-100%) for ACS diagnosis and prediction of major adverse cardiovascular events. Specificity and positive predictive values were lower and less consistent. When combined with hs-cTn, the diagnostic accuracy of CCTA for ACS was improved significantly. CCTA was associated with low rates of ACS at follow-up (0-3.5%), which were lower than or comparable to the safety outcomes of standard care and stress testing.