Application of triple rule-out with 64-slice spiral CT in the diagnosis of acute chest pain / 中华放射学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the performance of triple rule-out with(M-slice spiral CT in the combined examination of pulmonary artery,thoracic aorta and coronary artery for patients with acute chest pain.Methods Seventy patients who presented with acute chest pain were included in the study.All of the patients underwent retrospective ECG-gated 64-slice computed tomography triple rule-out examination to evaluate the pulmonary arteries,thoracic aorta and coronary arteries.Multi-planar reconstruction(MPR), maximum intensity projection(MIP),curved-planar reconstruction(CPR)and volume rendering(VR) were used to display pulmonary arteries,thoracic aorta and coronary arteries.We evaluated the image quality of coronary artery and the enhancement of the pulmonary artery and thoracic aorta to estimate if the examination can fulfill the clinical demand for the differential diagnosis of acute chest pain.Results The mean scan time was(8.5?1.0)s,and the dose of contrast medium injected was 100 ml.There were 95.7%(67/70)of patients whose CT values detected in the pulmonary artery and thoracic aorta after enhancement were ≥200 HU.The image quality of 85.8%(720/839)coronary segments was classified as excellent,8.6%(72/839)as good,and 5.6%(47/839)as poor.There were 20 cases with coronary stenoses≥50%,2 cases with pulmonary embolism,and 2 cases with aortic dissection.Conclusion The triple ride-out examination with 64-slice spiral CT could depict pulmonary artery,thoracic aorta,and coronary artery in 8 s with good image quality.It has great potential in the etiological diagnosis for the patients with acute chest pain.