title: Non invasive cardiac vein mapping: role of multislice CT coronary angiography.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Coronary venous anatomy is of primary importance when implanting a cardiac resynchronization therapy device, besides, the coronary sinus can be differently enlarged depending on chronic heart failure. The aim of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of Coronary CTA in describing the coronary venous tree and in particular the coronary sinus and detecting main venous system variants.
  
  
  METHODS
  301 consecutive patients (196 ♂, mean age 63.74 years) studied for coronary artery disease with 64 slice Coronary CTA were retrospectively examined. The acquisition protocol was the standard acquisition one used for coronary artery evaluation but the cardiac venous system were visualized. The cardiac venous system was depicted using 3D, MPR, cMPR and MIP post-processing reconstructions on an off-line workstation. For each patient image quality, presence and caliber of the coronary sinus (CS), great cardiac vein (GCV), middle vein (MV), anterior interventricular vein (AIV), lateral cardiac vein (LCV), posterior cardiac vein (PCV), small cardiac vein (SCV) and presence of variant of the normal anatomy were examined and recorded.
  
  
  RESULTS
  CS, GCV, MV and AIV were visualized in 100% of the cases. The LCV was visualized in 255/301 (84%) patients, the PCV in 248/301 (83%) patients and the SCV in 69/301 (23%) patients. Mean diameter of the CS was 8.7 mm in 276/301 (91.7%) patients without chronic heart failure and 9.93 mm in 25/301 (8.3%) patients with chronic heart failure.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Coronary CTA allows non invasive mapping of the cardiac venous system and may represent a useful presurgical tool for biventricular pacemaker devices implantation.
authors.affiliation: Radiology Department, University Hospital Policlinico G.B.Rossi, P.le L.A. Scuro 10, 37134 Verona, Italy. robertomalag@yahoo.it
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Malagò
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pezzato
authors.forename: Camilla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Barbiani
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Sala
authors.forename: Giulia A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Zamboni
authors.forename: Domenico
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tavella
authors.forename: Roberto Pozzi
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Mucelli
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000465:Algorithms; D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010690:Phlebography / Q000379:methods*; D011857:Radiographic Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*