Objective We evaluated radiation exposure and image quality of a new coronary CT angiography protocol, high-pitch spiral acquisition, using dual source CT (DSCT). Materials and methods Coronary CTA was performed in 25 consecutive patients with a stable heart rate of 60 bpm or less after premedication, using 2 x 128 0.6-mm sections, 38.4-mm … Read more

For decades, dual-energy imaging has been used for tissue differentiation with several x-ray–based imaging modalities, exploiting the fact that the tissues in the human body show different absorption characteristics when penetrated with different x-ray spectra, spectra that are typically generated by different kV settings of the x-ray tube. Recently, dual-source … Read more

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Case history Five years following quadruple CABG surgery, this 64-year-old patient started experiencing atypical chest pain. Question Are any of the bypass grafts or anastomoses stenotic or occluded? Is there an extra-cardiac cause behind the patient‘s symptoms? Diagnosis/Differential diagnosis Acute graft thrombosis, myocardial infarction, myocardial ischemia due to graft stenosis, aortic dissection, pulmonary embolism, pericarditis, … 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

Case history 49-year-old patient with atypical chest pain and an equivocal bicycle stress test (non-significant ST segment depression in the anterior leads). Question The relative young age of the patient, atypical nature of the chest pain, and equivocal stress test make coronary artery disease rather unlikely. Thus, coronary CTA was performed to rule … Read more

Case history 43-year-old patient with acute chest pain, not entirely typical for myocardial infarction. ST segment elevation [fig. 1] and enzyme elevation. Echo was normal. Question Myocarditis versus myocardial infarction: Can coronary stenoses/occlusions be ruled out? Diagnosis / Differential diagnosis Chest pain and ST segment elevation are the lead symptoms of acute myocardial infarction. Here, … Read more