Internationale Zeitschrift für Herz-Kreislauf-Forschung

Analyzing a computed tomography Coronary Angiography

Hatem Alkadhi

Computed Tomography Coronary Angiography (CTCA) has become routine clinical practise in many institutions across the world. All previous research on the diagnostic accuracy of CTCA have found that this approach has a strong negative predictive value, indicating that it is capable of excluding relevant coronary artery disease[1,2,3]. CTCA, on the other hand, places great demands not only on technology but also on the CTCA data interpreters. A relevant coronary lesion could be readily missed by an untrained reader, while a non-related stenosis could be underestimated as a substantial lesion, especially in the presence of extensive calcified deposits. Furthermore, artefacts could be confused for genuine lesions, leading to unnecessary false-positive classifications. The stated high negative predictive value of CTCA is one of the method's key benefits, and a patient with a negative scan result will typically not undergo further cardiac diagnostics. It is critical that a CTCA study is accurately read. Any false-positive CTCA results, on the other hand, result in more invasive work-up that could have been avoided if the CTCA interpretation had been correct.