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Written by Justine Cadet
Slightly more than one-third of patients without known disease, who underwent elective cardiac catheterization, had obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) out of nearly 400,000 patients at 663 sites, based on study findings published March 11 in the New England Journal of Medicine. However, in an interview, Timothy D. Henry, MD, from Minneapolis Heart Institute, said that when reviewing the study’s data in its entirety, it appears that most practices are performing these procedures properly.
Tuesday, March 09 2010
Rcadia Medical Imaging has been issued a CE Mark for its computer-aided detection software--the COR Analyzer system--that helps identify patients with significant coronary artery disease by an analysis of coronary CT angiography (CCTA) studies.
While coronary CT angiography (CCTA) can assist in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD), the radiation dose exposure during an exam has been a problem. Using volume scans rather than helical scans has the potential to reduce dose by 91 percent, a study published in the March issue of Radiology found.
Image quality of multi-detector CT scans, when utilized for the noninvasive detection of coronary artery stenosis, can be significantly associated with patient characteristics, including ethnicity, body mass index, heart rate and the presence of breathing artifact, but not with coronary artery calcium (CAC) score at a patient level, based on a study in the January issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has released four new Category I Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes to report cardiac CT (CCT) and cardiac CT angiography (CCTA) exams.
SAN FRANCISCO—Plaque morphology, specifically non-calcified and mixed coronary plaques, detected and characterized by coronary CT angiography (CCTA), provides incremental value in predicting all-cause mortality in symptomatic patients with non-obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD), according to a poster presentation at the 2009 Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium this week.
Adenosine stress CT can identify stress-induced myocardial perfusion defects with diagnostic accuracy comparable to SPECT, with similar radiation dose and the advantage of providing information on coronary stenosis, according to a study in the Sept. 15 issue of the Journal of American College of Cardiology.
When standard protocols for coronary CT angiography with 16-, 64-slice multidetector CT and dual-source CT scanners are used, the radiation dose is still high; however, imagers can achieve low estimated radiation doses when using optimized and individually adjusted protocols, according to a study in the August issue of Heart.
Children in Hong Kong, compared with U.S. pediatric patients, have a greater risk of cancer from the radiation dose delivered during coronary CT angiography, according to a study in the August issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
An evaluation of coronary artery disease (CAD) on an Apple iPhone has high sensitivity and negative predictive value among evaluable arteries, according to a proof-of-concept study presented at last week's Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) meeting in Orlando, Fla.
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A coronary CT angiography-only approach -- when factoring in a $20,000 threshold level for cost per correct diagnosis and $50,000 per quality-adjusted life-year -- is the most cost-effective diagnostic strategy for the evaluation of patients presenting with stable chest pain without known coronary artery disease (CAD) with intermediate CAD prevalence, according to a decision analysis study published in the March issue of Radiology.
Sponsored by Toshiba America Medical Systems, the Society of Cardiovascular CT (SCCT) is now accepting submissions for the fourth annual Young Investigator Awards.
For ruling out coronary artery disease (CAD), multidetector CT (16-slice or more) is more accurate than MRI, according to a retrospective study in today’s Annals of Internal Medicine.
New computer-aided detection software for coronary CT angiography could help physicians rule out narrowing of the coronary arteries in patients with low to moderate risk of coronary artery disease, according to a study published online Nov. 5 in European Radiology.
Low-dose cardiac computed tomography angiography (CCTA) allows for the accurate evaluation of coronary artery disease, but with significantly less effective radiation dose to patients compared with coronary angiography, according to a study in the October issue of Heart.
Prospective electrocardiogram (ECG) gating allows radiologists to significantly reduce the patient radiation dose delivered during coronary CT angiography (CCTA), according to a study in the October issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology.
In a real-world, clinical setting, the negative predictive value of coronary CT angiography (CCTA) in low-risk patients is very high and "exceptionally helpful" in predicting freedom from events for up to three years, according to a study in the Aug. 15 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology .
In a real-world clinical setting, the negative predictive value of 64-slice coronary CT angiography (CCTA) is very high and helpful in predicting freedom from events for up to three years, according to a study in the Aug. 15 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology. The researchers also found cost-savings benefits associated with CCTA.
Philips Healthcare has placed its Brilliance iCT 256-slice system at Fletcher Allen Health Care, University of Vermont College of Medicine in Burlington, Vt.
Within a large diagnostic population of patients with coronary artery calcium (CAC) scores of zero, 13 percent still manifest plaque of all types on cardiac CT angiography (CCTA), according to a study presented at last week's Society of Cardiovascular CT (SCCT) meeting in Orlando, Fla.
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The use of health IT to reduce rehospitalizations will be welcome but also disruptive, said Stephen Jencks, an independent consultant in healthcare safety during a Feb. 24 webinar on the potential use of health IT to mitigate rehospitalizations, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
During the Health IT Standards Committee meeting on Feb. 24 in Washington, D.C., the Clinical Operations Workgroup sought to gather comments on proposed recommendations on implementation specifications for content exchange, vocabulary and code set standards for the Interim Final Rule of meaningful use.
In 2006, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), a branch of the FDA, began examining the number of medical device reports they received. Over the past two years, the number of submitted reports has increased, sparking a demand for the CDRH to make a move to electronic reporting.
A new hospital breaking ground usually isn’t breaking news. But the vision of patient care at one new facility, tentatively named Palomar Medical Center West (PMC West), is currently illegal under California state law.