Can the targeted use of MR angiography after CT angiography help assess the severity of focal calcific coronary lesions?

摘要

Targeted coronary MR angiogra- Tphy (MRA) offers hope when encountering the very common clinical problem of a "blind spot" on coronary CT angiography (CTA) due to a focal calcified lesion with a calcium score of > 100 based on a preliminary study of 33 lesions in 18 patients , In this issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology, an interdisciplinary group of investigators, Liu et at. from Northwestern University in Chicago, IL, report their findings that coronary MRA had a better diagnostic performance than coronary CTA for the detection of significant stenosis in patients with high calcium scores. They base this conclusion on a comparison of 33 calcified plaques with a calcium score of > 100 detected in 18 patients using CTA and MRA and compared with conventional coronary angiography (CAG).