The Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) announced the winners of the Toshiba Young Investigator Award at the organization's sixth annual scientific meeting July 14-17. Sponsored by an educational grant from Toshiba America Medical Systems, the Young Investigator Award (YIA) supports the professional and clinical development of those within five years of completion of a training program.

The finalists each submitted a mini-manuscript of 1,000 words, concerning research related to the technical and clinical advancement of cardiovascular CT. Each finalist also gave an oral presentation at the meeting. All five finalists will be granted a free year of SCCT membership, and two winners have been recognized.

The winners of this year’s YIA were:

• Amit R. Patel, MD, University of Chicago Medical Center. "Detection of Myocardial Perfusion Abnormalities Using Ultra-Low Radiation Dose Regadenoson Stress Multidetector Computed Tomography"
• Brad Traeger, PhD, North Dakota State University, Fargo. "Characterization of Anatomic versus Effective Orifice Area and Pressure Recovery of Native Aortic Valve Stenosis Using Computational Fluid Dynamics and CT Derived In Vivo Aortic Valve-Root Geometry"

The other three finalists for this year’s YIA award were:

• Onkar Jha, MD, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York. "Evaluation of Left Atrial Appendage Stasis with Multidetector Computed Tomography: A Comparison with Transesophageal Echocardiography"
• Takehiro Nakahara, MD, Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine, Gunma, Japan. "'Replacement Injection' Methods May Enable Better Visualization in the Right Heart"
• Ryo Nakazato, MD, Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles. "Incremental Value of Epicardial Fat Volume Over Coronary Calcium Scoring for Predicting Myocardial Ischemia by PET and Obstructive Coronary Artery Stenosis by Invasive Angiography"