Detection of coronary artery stenoses with multislice helical CT angiography

OBJECTIVES: The authors compared multislice CT angiography and selective angiography for the assessment of coronary artery disease.

METHODS: In 28 patients, the presence and degree of coronary artery stenoses were determined in coronary segments prepared with beta-blocker for good image quality with multislice CT.

RESULTS: In 187 coronary artery segments, sensitivity, specificity, and negative predictive value for the detection of stenoses >50% with multislice CT angiography were 81%, 90%, and 97%, respectively. The agreement for determining the degree of stenoses with multislice CT angiography and selective coronary angiography was only moderate (kappa = 0.58).

CONCLUSIONS: Because of the limited spatial resolution, it is not possible with multislice CT angiography to determine the degree the coronary artery stenoses precisely. However, the high negative predictive value indicates that multislice CT may be a suitable tool to reliably rule out coronary artery disease.