Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography
Volume 3, Supplement 2 , Pages S91-S98, November 2009

Methods of plaque quantification and characterization by cardiac computed tomography

  • Pal Maurovich-Horvat, MD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Radiology, Cardiac MR PET CT Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, 165 Cambridge Street, Suite 400, Boston, MA 02114, USA
    • Semmelweis University, Heart Center, Budapest, Hungary
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author.
    • ,
  • Maros Ferencik, MD, PhD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Radiology, Cardiac MR PET CT Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, 165 Cambridge Street, Suite 400, Boston, MA 02114, USA
    • Division of Cardiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
    • ,
  • Fabian Bamberg, MD, MPH

      Affiliations

    • Department of Radiology, Cardiac MR PET CT Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, 165 Cambridge Street, Suite 400, Boston, MA 02114, USA
    • ,
  • Udo Hoffmann, MD, MPH

      Affiliations

    • Department of Radiology, Cardiac MR PET CT Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, 165 Cambridge Street, Suite 400, Boston, MA 02114, USA

Received 8 July 2009; accepted 23 October 2009. published online 02 November 2009.

Abstract 

The pathologic evolution of coronary artery atherosclerosis occurs slowly over decades, which may provide an opportunity for diagnostic imaging to identify patients before clinical events evolve. Cardiac computed tomography (CT) is an emerging noninvasive imaging tool, which can visualize the entire coronary tree with submillimeter resolution. We reviewed the current status of cardiac CT to qualitatively and quantitatively determine coronary plaque dimensions and composition, and its potential to improve our understanding of the natural history of coronary artery disease as well as prevention of cardiovascular events.

Keywords: Cardiac imaging, Coronary artery atherosclerosis, Multidetector-row computed tomography, Plaque characterization, Plaque quantification

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 Conflict of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest.

PII: S1934-5925(09)00518-8

doi:10.1016/j.jcct.2009.10.012

Journal of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography
Volume 3, Supplement 2 , Pages S91-S98, November 2009

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