TY - JOUR
T1 - Atherosclerotic Plaque Characterization by Multidetector Row Computed Tomography Angiography
AU - Cordeiro, Marco A.S.
AU - Lima, João A.C.
N1 - Funding Information:
Dr. Cordeiro is funded by the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq, Brasilia, DF, Brazil) as a postdoctoral fellow (fellowship grant 202706/02-8) in the Division of Cardiology of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Baltimore, Maryland). Dr. Lima has received research grants from Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation, Otawara, Japan. Dr. William A. Zoghbi acted as guest editor.
PY - 2006/4/18
Y1 - 2006/4/18
N2 - Multidetector row computed tomography angiography (MDCTA) is seen as a potential alternative to current imaging methods for the assessment of vessel anatomy and atherosclerotic plaque composition/morphology in a great variety of arterial beds. Recent advances represented by the increase in gantry speed to <500 ms per rotation and in the number of detector rows from 4 to 64, in addition to the decrease in slice thickness to submillimetric levels, brought significant improvement in diagnostic accuracy by coronary MDCTA. In general, it has a good correlation with both intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and histopathology for discrimination between soft, intermediate, and calcified plaques. Plaque area and volume tend to be underestimated by 12-detector row MDCTA and overestimated by 16-detector row MDCTA, but the number of patients studied so far is relatively small. However, it seems that 64-detector row MDCTA can measure plaque area and volume with greater accuracy. Plaque remodeling is overestimated in small vessels by 12-detector row MDCTA, whereas 16- and 64-detector row MDCTA show a good correlation with IVUS. Although still under development, the potential of MDCTA to characterize atherosclerotic plaque composition as well as to precisely determine plaque area, volume, and remodeling in the future is quite promising.
AB - Multidetector row computed tomography angiography (MDCTA) is seen as a potential alternative to current imaging methods for the assessment of vessel anatomy and atherosclerotic plaque composition/morphology in a great variety of arterial beds. Recent advances represented by the increase in gantry speed to <500 ms per rotation and in the number of detector rows from 4 to 64, in addition to the decrease in slice thickness to submillimetric levels, brought significant improvement in diagnostic accuracy by coronary MDCTA. In general, it has a good correlation with both intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and histopathology for discrimination between soft, intermediate, and calcified plaques. Plaque area and volume tend to be underestimated by 12-detector row MDCTA and overestimated by 16-detector row MDCTA, but the number of patients studied so far is relatively small. However, it seems that 64-detector row MDCTA can measure plaque area and volume with greater accuracy. Plaque remodeling is overestimated in small vessels by 12-detector row MDCTA, whereas 16- and 64-detector row MDCTA show a good correlation with IVUS. Although still under development, the potential of MDCTA to characterize atherosclerotic plaque composition as well as to precisely determine plaque area, volume, and remodeling in the future is quite promising.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jacc.2005.09.076
DO - 10.1016/j.jacc.2005.09.076
M3 - Review article
C2 - 16631509
AN - SCOPUS:33646070590
SN - 0735-1097
VL - 47
SP - C40-C47
JO - Journal of the American College of Cardiology
JF - Journal of the American College of Cardiology
IS - 8 SUPPL.
ER -