This is perhaps the first article on the use of 64-slice CT in post-CABG patients, by Pache G et al, published in the European Heart Journal.
As expected the results are great, with a negative predictive value of 97%. There were two venous grafts seen only on cardiac CT and not on invasive coronary angiography, the gold standard and these had to be excluded from the analysis - this ability to see venous grafts, which may not be appreciated on catheter angiography has been discussed before in this blog. Three anastomotic stenotic lesions were missed due to metal and calcium.
What has not been touched upon is the issue of competitive flow, etc, discussed in earlier posts as well as in the next post.
This is a patient who had SVG-RCA, LIMA-LAD and a sequential SVG-OM1-OM2 graft, all of which are well seen and patent with good distal vessels. In India, a sequential venous graft is unusual.
Hi congratulation one more time for your site, its very interesting. I would like to know if you analise you images with the automatic software or with the 3 plannar reconstruction follow segment per segment ? tanks...
Posted by: Marcelo Hadlich | March 31, 2006 at 05:20 AM
I use a Terarecon and analyze images in free-form. The software automatically initially does some segmentation and then we review each image segment by segment.
Posted by: Bhavin | March 31, 2006 at 04:15 PM