Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of coronary CT angiography (coronary CTA) using prospective ECG triggering (PT) for the detection of significant coronary artery stenosis compared to invasive coronary angiography (ICA).
Methods: A total of 20 patients underwent coronary CTA with PT using a 128-slice CT scanner (Definition AS+, Siemens) and ICA. All coronary CTA studies were evaluated for significant coronary artery stenoses (>or=50% luminal narrowing) by 2 observers in consensus using the AHA-15-segment model. Findings in CTA were compared to those in ICA.
Results: Coronary CTA using PT had 88% sensitivity in comparison to 100% with ICA, 95% to 88% specificity, 80% to 92% positive predictive value and 97% to 100% negative predictive value for diagnosing significant coronary artery stenosis on per segment per patient analysis, respectively. Mean effective radiation dose-equivalent of CTA was 2.6+/-1 mSv.
Conclusion: Coronary CTA using PT enables non-invasive diagnosis of significant coronary artery stenosis with high diagnostic accuracy in comparison to ICA and is associated with comparably low radiation exposure.