The impact of vessel and catheter position on the measurement accuracy in catheter-based quantitative coronary angiography

Background: The calculation of absolute artery dimensions in quantitative c oronary angiography is usually carried out by catheter calibration. It is b ased on the proportional comparison of the dimension of the imaged artery s egment to the dimension of the imaged angiographic catheter of known size. This calibration method presumes an identical radiographic magnification be tween angiographic catheter and artery segment of interest. However, due to the different intrathoracic location of both objects the radiographic magn ification or calibration factor is often not identical for a given angiogra phic projection. The aim of this study was to quantify the magnification er ror (out-of-plane magnification error) for the major coronary artery segmen ts imaged in frequently used angiographic projections. Methods: The intrath oracic spatial location of 468 coronary segments (RCA 196, LAD 156, LCX 116 ) and their respective coronary catheters were established with biplane ang iography and known imaging geometry data. The error in the radiographic mag nification or calibration factor was then calculated for ail 936 monoplane projections using the spatial coordinates and imaging geometry data. Result s: The mean magnitude of magnification error was 4% within all 936 measurem ents. The magnitude and direction of error varied with the lesion localizat ion and the angiographic projection angle (range -12.6% to +10.6%). The err or characteristics could be described with six typical error groups by stra tifying the data according to the three main coronaries and two angiographi c planes. In 24% of measurements, the magnification error exceeded the 5.2% error limit acceptable for reference vessel sizing. Measurements of left c oronary arteries were mainly affected by it. Conclusion: The magnification error contributes to the calibration error in measuring arterial dimensions by quantitative angiography. This error may affect the reliability of clin ical studies and the proper sizing of interventional devices. These finding s could be used to improve current error correction algorithms in order to reduce the effect of the magnification error in measuring arterial dimensio ns.