Computed tomographic assessment of coronary artery disease: state-of-the-art imaging techniques

Abstract

While coronary computed tomography (CT) angiography and more refined imaging of the coronary anatomy have driven technical innovation in cardiac CT for the last 10 years, there is now an increasing focus on functional applications of cardiac CT, such as evaluation of the myocardial blood supply or assessment of dynamic myocardial perfusion. Novel techniques show promising results. This article focuses on state-of-the-art CT imaging techniques to visualize the coronary anatomy, describes aspects of radiation dose reduction, and briefly touches on recent approaches to obtain functional information from a CT scan of the heart, in particular dual-energy CT.

Keywords: Cardiac computed tomography; Cardiac perfusion computed tomography; Coronary CT angiography; Dual-energy computed tomography; ECG-gated scanning; ECG-triggered scanning; First-pass enhancement scanning; Iterative reconstruction.