title: Nuclear stress perfusion imaging versus computed tomography coronary angiography for identifying patients with obstructive coronary artery disease as defined by conventional angiography: insights from the CorE-64 multicenter study.
abstract: We investigated the diagnostic accuracy of computed tomography angiography (CTA) versus myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) for detecting obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) as defined by conventional quantitative coronary angiography (QCA). Sixty-three patients who were enrolled in the CorE-64 multicenter study underwent CTA, MPI, and QCA imaging. All subjects were referred for cardiac catheterization with suspected or known coronary artery disease. The diagnostic accuracy of quantitative CTA and MPI for identifying patients with 50% or greater coronary arterial stenosis by QCA was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Pre-defined subgroups were patients with known CAD and those with a calcium score of 400 or over. Diagnostic accuracy by ROC analysis revealed greater area under the curve (AUC) for CTA than MPI for all 63 patients: 0.95 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.89-0.100] vs 0.65 (95%CI: 0.53-0.77), respectively (P<0.01). Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were 0.93, 0.95, 0.97, 0.88, respectively, for CTA and 0.85, 0.45, 0.74, 0.63, respectively, for MPI. In 48 patients without known CAD, AUC was 0.96 for CTA and to 0.67 for SPECT (P<0.01). There was no significant difference in AUC for CTA in patients with calcium score below 400 versus over 400 (0.93 vs 0.95), but AUC was different for SPECT (0.61 vs 0.95; P<0.01). In a direct comparison, CTA is markedly superior to MPI for detecting obstructive coronary artery disease in patients. Even in subgroups traditionally more challenging for CTA, SPECT does not offer similarly good diagnostic accuracy. CTA may be considered the non-invasive test of choice if diagnosis of obstructive CAD is the purpose of imaging.
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine and Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore - USA.
authors.forename: Yutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tanami
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine and Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore - USA.
authors.forename: Julie M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine and Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore - USA.
authors.forename: Andrea L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Vavere
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine - InCor, São Paulo - Brazil.
authors.forename: Carlos E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Rochitte
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Charité, Berlin - Germany.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dewey
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, St. Luke's International Hospital, Tokyo - Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Niinuma
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston - USA.
authors.forename: Melvin E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Clouse
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine and Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore - USA.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cox
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine and Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore - USA.
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brinker
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine and Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore - USA.
authors.forename: Joao A C
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Lima
authors.affiliation: Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine and Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore - USA.
authors.forename: Armin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Arbab-Zadeh
keywords: Cardiac computed tomography; Myocardial ischemia; Myocardial perfusion imaging