Imaging Coronary Anatomy and Reducing Myocardial Infarction
U Hoffmann, JE Udelson.

In 1998, the Journal published one of the early studies evaluating the sensitivity and specificity of coronary computed tomographic angiography (CTA), as compared with invasive coronary angiography, for the detection of obstructive coronary artery disease. Subsequent studies have established that CTA has excellent sensitivity (95 to 99%) and high specificity (64 to 83%) for the detection of coronary stenoses of 50% or greater. An analysis from the Prospective Multicenter Imaging Study for the Evaluation of Chest Pain (PROMISE) showed that CTA predicted subsequent cardiovascular events at least as well as, and perhaps better than, functional testing (C-statistic, 0.72 vs. 0.64; P=0.04). The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence of the United Kingdom now suggests that CTA is the most appropriate test in patients with stable chest pain in whom angina pectoris cannot be excluded by means of clinical assessment alone.