Diagnostic performance of 64-row coronary CT angiography in detecting significant stenosis as compared with conventional invasive coronary angiography

BACKGROUND: The aim of the present study is to evaluate the accuracy of 64-multidetector-row computed tomography angiography (CTA) in comparison to conventional invasive angiography (CIA) in the diagnosis of significant stenosis (≥ 50%) of coronary artery tree. METHODS: Assessment of CTA in the detection of coronary artery disease (CAD) was performed in patients referred because of symptoms or stress studies suggestive of ischemia. For this purpose, among more than 1000 cases of coronary CTA in a 20 months period a study population of 54 patients suspected to have significant stenosis of the coronary artery tree was investigated. The CIA procedure was performed in these patients one month after CTA. The accuracy of CTA in detecting significant stenosis was compared to CIA. RESULTS: For vessel based analysis of 179 coronary vessels, CTA had a sensitivity of 96%, specificity of 87.5%, positive predictive value of 90.5%, and negative predictive value of 94.6%. For patient-base analysis, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of CTA were 97.9%, 28.6%, 66.6%, and 90.2%, respectively. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study reveal that CT angiography with 64-slice scanner could be considered as a suitable technique for rapid triage of patients presenting to hospitals with chest pain. High values of sensitivity and PPV reveal the good performance of CTA in detecting CAD. KEYWORDS: Coronary Artery Disease (CAD), Computed Tomography Angiography (CTA), Conventional Invasive Angiography (CIA)