Detection of myocardial bridging with ECG-gated MDCT and multiplanar reconstruction.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to evaluate the incidence of myocardial bridging in 626 patients examined with MDCT angiography of the coronary arteries.


METHODS
Six hundred twenty-six patients who were referred to Florence Nightingale and Atatürk University Hospitals were involved in this study. These patients had atypical chest pain, symptoms suggestive of coronary artery disease, or no significant cardiac complaint. Patients were in sinus rhythm and were premedicated with metoprolol tartrate (5 mg/mL IV bolus) to decrease the heart rate and nitroglycerin (5 mg sublingual 1 min before the examination) to dilate the coronary arteries. MDCT was performed on two different 16-MDCT scanners.


RESULTS
Among the 626 patients, 22 cases (3.5%) of myocardial bridging were detected. Fifteen cases of myocardial bridging (2.4%) were located at the middle third of the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD), five (0.8%) were at the distal third of the LAD, and two (0.3%) were at the proximal third of the LAD. In these patients, the length of tunneled artery was between 6 and 22 mm, with a mean of 17 mm, and the depth of tunneled artery was between 1.2 and 3.3 mm, with a mean of 2.5 mm.


CONCLUSIONS
We found the incidence of myocardial bridging in this patient group to be 3.5%. This result is in agreement with some of the angiographic studies in the literature. Our study showed that MDCT is a reliable and noninvasive tool for diagnosing coronary myocardial bridging. After evaluating resource axial images, it is necessary to also evaluate the sagittal multiplanar reconstruction images for myocardial bridging.
Kantarci
Mecit
M
Department of Radiology, Medical Faculty, Atatürk University, 200 Evler Mah. 14. Sok No: 5, Dadaskent, Erzurum 25090, Turkey. akkanrad@hotmail.com
Duran
Cihan
C
Durur
Irmak
I
Alper
Fatih
F
Onbas
Omer
O
Gulbaran
Murat
M
Okur
Adnan
A
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D003330:Coronary Vessel Anomalies / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods