Dobutamine stress tagging and gradient-echo imaging for detection of coronary heart disease at 3 T.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and diagnostic accuracy of a combined spoiled gradient-echo (sGRE) and tagged gradient-echo (SPAMM-GRE) protocol for detection of coronary artery disease (CAD) during high-dose dobutamine stress at 3 T.


METHODS
The study protocol was approved by the local ethics committee. For stress testing, a standard high-dose dobutamine protocol was employed. Image quality at the highest stress level and diagnostic accuracy of the sGRE and SPAMM-GRE sequences were compared. The final study population consisted of 37 patients.


RESULTS
The mean image quality score was 2.6±0.6 for the sGRE sequence and 2.4±0.6 for the SPAMM-GRE sequence (p>0.05). Sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy were 0.81, 0.86, 0.84 and 0.88, 0.86, 0.86 for the sGRE and SPAMM-GRE, respectively. In three cases with new wall motion abnormalities (WMAs), detected by sGRE and SPAMM-GRE, WMAs were detected at a lower stress level by tagging.


CONCLUSIONS
The combined sGRE and SPAMM-GRE high-dose dobutamine protocol at 3 T is feasible and delivers good diagnostic accuracy. Tagging increases the sensitivity of high-dose dobutamine stress testing for detection of CAD and may allow for detection of new WMAs at lower stress levels compared with sGRE alone.
Department of Radiology, University of Bonn, Germany. daniel.thomas@ukb.uni-bonn.de
D
D
Thomas
C
C
Meyer
K
K
Strach
C P
CP
Naehle
J
J
Mazraeh
T
T
Gampert
H H
HH
Schild
T
T
Sommer
D002316:Cardiotonic Agents; D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004280:Dobutamine; D025401:Echocardiography, Stress / Q000379:methods*; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
D002316:Cardiotonic Agents; D004280:Dobutamine