Cardiac valve disease: spectrum of findings on cardiac 64-MDCT.
OBJECTIVE
Recent studies have established that cardiac MDCT generates high-quality images of the cardiac valves. Images are acquired during a single breath-hold (inspiration) after the injection of iodinated contrast material (5 mL/s) followed by a saline bolus chaser. Incremental data sets are then reconstructed throughout the R-R interval, and after transfer to a workstation, specialized software combines data sets sequentially to generate cine loops of the heart throughout the cardiac cycle. The purpose of this article is to describe the cardiac MDCT techniques allowing optimal cardiac valve depiction and to illustrate the MDCT appearances of the most important valve diseases.


CONCLUSIONS
Cardiac MDCT provides an excellent imaging method for illustrating cardiac valve disease. Radiologists should be aware of the various appearances of the common and most important cardiac valve diseases on cardiac MDCT.
Ryan
Ronan
R
Department of Radiology, Cardiac CT/MRI Program, St. Vincent's University Hospital, Elm Park, 24 Castledawson, Sion Hill, Blackrock, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Abbara
Suhny
S
Colen
Rivka R
RR
Arnous
Samer
S
Quinn
Martin
M
Cury
Ricardo C
RC
Dodd
Jonathan D
JD
D003287:Contrast Media; D006349:Heart Valve Diseases / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
D003287:Contrast Media