Detection and analysis of intracoronary artery stent after PTCA using contrast-enhanced three-dimensional electron beam tomography.
We evaluated several three-dimensional methods of contrast-enhanced electron beam tomography (EBT) for evaluation of intracoronary stent characteristics after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA). Twenty-six patients who had undergone PTCA and stenting (31 stents) were investigated by using contrast-enhanced, electrocardiographically (ECG) triggered EBT scanning. EBT results were compared with conventional selective coronary arteriography (SCA). Overall, 27 intracoronary stents had been identified on EBT images (87.1%), while 4 stents could not be evaluated because of impaired image quality. EBT correctly identified the only case in which there was a residual stenosis at the distal portion of the stent. As compared with SCA results, EBT showed an over-estimation of intracoronary stent diameter (p < 0.001) and accurate measurement on the visualized length of the stents (p > 0.05). Fifty Hu, 100 Hu and 150 Hu were used as the observed window levels on three-dimensional (3-D) images; the accuracy for stent assessment increased with ascending window levels. EBT can reliably characterize coronary artery stents and may become a useful non-invasiveive method for patency evaluation of stented coronary segments after PTCA.
Lu
B
B
Saint JohnOs Cardiovascular Research Center, 1124 West Carson Street, RB-2, Torrance, CA 90502, USA.
Dai
R
R
Bai
H
H
He
S
S
Jing
B
B
Zhuang
N
N
Gao
R
R
Chen
J
J
Budoff
M J
MJ
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D015906:Angioplasty, Balloon, Coronary / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D003287:Contrast Media; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D011184:Postoperative Period; D011336:Probability; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D015607:Stents; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014654:Vascular Patency
D003287:Contrast Media