Artifacts and Pitfalls in Coronary Artery Calcium Scoring

摘要

The clinical application of coronary artery calcium scoring (CACS) has been widely discussed in the recent scientific literature. The authors' institutional experience with CACS indicates that there are many artifacts and interpretation pitfalls related to this relatively new technology. These limitations have been less widely disseminated in the literature and falsely indicate a shallower learning curve for CACS. A host of factors contribute to the complexities in interpreting these procedures: computed tomography acquisition parameters, postprocessing software settings, user error, patient movement, respiratory and cardiac motion, and irrelevant calcifications. Radiologists interpreting CACS results must be cognizant of these sources of error to obtain reproducible results consistently. This article reviews representative artifacts and pitfalls as an aid to practicing radiologists who regularly interpret CACS examination results.