Assessment of coronary collateral artery by CT angiography in patients with ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction

摘要

Evaluation of coronary collateral arteries is important because existing collateral artery in ischemic heart disease determines the patients' prognosis [1-4]. The most widely used method for assessing the coronary collateral circulation is invasive coronary angiography (ICA) using the Rentrop classification [5]. Several studies show that computed tomography angiography (CTA) is able to detect coronary collateral arteries [ 6,7 ]. However, all previous studies have a time lag between CTA and ICA as reference. Nascent coronary collaterals may exist in some patients within minutes to hours after abrupt coronary obstruction during acute myocardial infarction (AMI) [8]. To determine the sensitivity and specificity of CTA to detect coronary collateral flow, it is necessary to perform CTA and ICA as references without time discrepancy. We studied the patients with ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction (STEMI) by CTA right before ICA so that we could compare their sensitivity to detect de novo collateral arteries.