Results: CT Clinical Practice: Data acquisition protocols

Cardiac CT

1. I am an interventional radiologist and do most of the CTA work in my department. Recently one of our cardiologists asked for an "equilibrium phase" CTA for an adult patient with complex CHD, s/p multiple procedures, including a Fontan. His goal was to evaluate the patency of the Fontan. Would lengthening the preset delay from 20 to 25 seconds be adequate to see contrast in part of the Fontan circuit? I am contemplating doing one run at 20- 25 seconds delay (arterial) and then an entirely separate other delayed ("equilibrium") scan at one minute. Does that sound reasonable? Do you have a better plan from your group's experience? We use a Marconi MX8000 scanner.

Answer: The 4 slice will be a limiting factor. Otherwise, I agree that the best bet in these complex cases is a 2 phase study at approximately 25 and 55 seconds. The recent Radiographics (October 2003) has several articles on Cardiac CT.

2. Any chance of providing a complete protocol for scanning hearts on the Siemens 16?

Answer: Answer: Please look at the front page in the protocol section, it is there.

3. Do you have some recommendation of the protocol of pediatric heart disease?

Answer: There are pediatric protocols in the pediatric protocol section of www.ctisus.com.

References


Goo HW, Park I-S, Ko JK et al. CT of congenital heart disease: Normal anatomy and typical pathologic conditions. Radiographics 2003; 23: S147-S165.

  • Summary: This article focuses on multislice cardiac CT in young children, reviewing acquisition protocols, display techniques, normal anatomy and more common pathologic conditions of the heart. A 4 slice MDCT scanner was used. The authors describe their policies and protocols for sedation, radiation dose and contrast infusion in this pediatric population. Display techniques demonstrated included linear or curved planar reformatting, MIP, minimum intensity projection, SSD and VR. Many pathologic entities are displayed.