Computed Tomography in Color: NanoK-Enhanced Spectral CT Molecular Imaging

摘要

New multidetector cardiac computed tomography (MDCT) can image the heart within the span of a few beats, and as such, it is the favored noninvasive approach to assess coronary anatomy rapidly. However, MDCT has proven to be more useful for excluding coronary disease than for making positive diagnoses. The inability to detect unstable cardiac disease arises from the confounding attenuating effects of calcium deposits within atherosclerotic plaques, which obscure lumen anatomy, and from the insensitivity of CT X-rays to image low attenuating intraluminal thrombus adhered to a disrupted plaque cap, the absolute condition of ruptured plaque and unstable disease.