Detection and quantification of coronary artery calcification with electron-beam and conventional CT

To identify patients with increased risk of having coronary artery disease (CAD), electron-beam computed tomography (EBCT) was used for years for quan tifying calcifications of the coronary arteries. The first direct compariso n between EBCT and conventional CT was performed to determine the reliabili ty of widely available conventional CT for the assessment of the coronary c alcium score. Fifty male patients with suspected CAD were investigated with both modalities, EBCT and conventional 500-ms non-spiral partial scan CT. Scoring of the coronary calcification was performed according to the Agatst on method. Forty-two of these patients underwent coronary angiography for t he assessment of significant luminal narrowing. The correlation coefficient of the score values of both modalities was highly significant (r = 0.952, p < 0.001). The variability between the two modalities was 42%. Mean calciu m score in patients with significant coronary luminal narrowing (n = 37) wa s 1104 +/- 1089 with EBCT and 1229 +/- 1327 with conventional CT. In patien ts with out luminal narrowing (n = 5) mean calcium score was 73 +/- 57 with EBCT and 26 +/- 35 with convention al CT. Although images of the heart fro m conventional CT may suffer from cardiac motion artifacts, conventional CT has the potential to identify patients with CAD with accuracy similar to E BCT.