title: Extracardiac findings on cardiac computed tomography: a radiologist's perspective.
abstract: There has been debate in the cardiology literature as to how to handle unexpected noncardiac findings on cardiac computed tomography examinations. From the perspective of a radiologist, all structures on the presented images should be assessed. The interpreter needs to carefully window the findings down to potentially important ones. Then the question becomes what to do next. Cardiologists who take primary responsibility for cardiac computed tomography examinations must be able to recognize noncardiac findings that require immediate action. Although infrequent, their clinical impact can be substantial. False-positive results will occur; minimizing these depends on knowledge of common trivial findings, normal variants, and customary workup and follow-up recommendations. This implies experience in interpreting structures outside the heart. Therefore, help from an experienced and decisive radiologist should maximize sensitivity for significant lesions while minimizing the number of false-positive diagnoses.
authors.affiliation: Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA. kevin.johnson@yale.edu
authors.forename: Kevin M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Johnson
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D003951:Diagnostic Errors; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D013896:Thoracic Diseases / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*