Background: Redoable precise and non-invasive diagnostic imaging modality with the least radiation dose is essential for infants with congenital heart disease (CHD) .
Purpose: To investigate the accuracy and estimate the radiation dose of our cardiac computed tomography (CCT) protocol.
Material and methods: A total of 82 infants with CHD underwent non-ECG-gated CCT without contrast timing scanning techniques and were retrospectively studied. The image quality and radiation dose were estimated. The radiation dose was compared statistically to virtual retrospective ECG-gated and prospective ECG-triggering scanning modes. The diagnostic accuracy was assessed assuming the surgical results as the diagnostic gold standard.
Results: Most exams showed a high quality with low radiation doses compared to previous studies. The mean effective dose (ED) was 0.39 ± 1.2, significantly lower than that of the virtual retrospective ECG-gated and prospective ECG-triggering scanning and lower than in previous studies. Our CCT protocol has achieved a diagnostic accuracy of 99.52% with a sensitivity of 94.83% and specificity of 99.91%.
Conclusion: Non-ECG-gated CCT without contrast timing techniques can detect the non-coronary cardiovascular defects of CHD in infants with an ultralow radiation dose and a high diagnostic accuracy.
Keywords: Cardiovascular; cardiac computed tomography; congenital heart disease; infants; non-ECG-gated; radiation dose.