U. Joseph Schoepf, M.D.

Feb 21, 2010 to Feb 24, 2010. This 4-day course is devoted to cutting edge cardiac imaging. Participants will have an opportunity to learn the basics of cardiac CT and MRI acquisition and interpretation with interactive workstation reviews of 50 cardiac CT exams. Read more

Marketing claims accompanying the launch of a new high-end imaging system are always to be taken with a grain of salt. In the case of coronary CT angiography with 2nd generation dual-source CT, however, the emerging literature and our own experiences using this system largely support the pre-launch projections. These … Read more

The purpose of this article is to describe the current role of ECG-synchronized CT in the evaluation of patients with acute chest pain (triple rule-out) in the emergency department. Read more

A41-year-old woman was admitted to the Medical University of South Carolina cardiology service with new-onset atrial fibrillation, with chest tightness, shortness of breath, and a nonproductive cough. As a child, she had a congenital bicuspid aortic valve with severe aortic stenosis that initially required commissurotomy, a bioprosthetic valve replacement at … Read more

Purpose To investigate the impact of right ventricle (RV) contrast attenuation on the accuracy of RV function analysis at cardiac CT performed for coronary imaging. Materials and methods We analyzed multi-phase cardiac dual-source CT studies of 40 consecutive patients (mean age 60.9+/-12.3 years; 13 women) with normal valve function. Function analyses of … Read more

Papillary muscle rupture is a rare cardiac emergency most frequently associated with acute myocardial infarction or blunt chest trauma. Once papillary muscle rupture has been diagnosed, urgent mitral valve replacement is indicated to correct the patient’s hemodynamic deterioration. Here we present the case of a patient with spontaneous, complete posterior … Read more

Vladimir Mendoza, Cardiologist, Cuba has sent the following question: Coronary veins: How we can study the complete coronary vein with DSCT in patients with DMC? U. Joseph Schoepf, M.D., Medical University of South Carolina: The protocol for studying coronary veins is not technically different from regular coronary CT angiography as far as ECG-synchronization and … Read more

Abstract We aimed to evaluate the feasibility of diagnosing coronary stenosis and myocardial ischemia with a single dual-energy CT (DECT) acquisition. Thirty-five patients underwent contrast-enhanced, ECG-gated DECT of the heart while independently operating the two tubes of a dual-source CT system at high and low-energy X-ray spectra. From the same … Read more

This article of Balazs Ruzsics, M.D., has been published in March 2008 in Circulation, Journal of the American Heart Association. Please find the link to the article below. Authors: Balazs Ruzsics, Heon Lee, Eric R. Powers, Thomas G. Flohr, Philip Costello and U. Joseph Schoepf Circulation. 2008;117:1244-1245 Read more

The following question has been sent by J. Oltmann, CTA Technologist, USA: In the hospital setting, the logic has to be very defined in the order. Although the Multislice CT book included with our Definition scanner has a good flow chart as indicators, I would like to see if any specific information … Read more

Purpose Dual-Source CT (DSCT) has substantially improved temporal resolution over previous scanner generations, which holds promise to increase the accuracy of coronary CT angiography (cCTA). We aimed to assess the impact of DSCT on radiation dose, diagnostic quality and use of rate control at cCTA compared with 64-slice CT. Method and materials The … Read more

Purpose To achieve a desired level of enhancement with the least amount of contrast media (CM) at dual-source CT (DSCT) coronary angiography by using a computerized algorithm for patient-specific adaptation of CM volume and injection parameters. Method and materials In 32 patients undergoing CM (300 mgI/ml) enhanced coronary DSCT we used a computerized … Read more