Myocardial defect assessment

Coronary arteries supply blood to the left ventricular muscle (myocardium). Obstructions within the coronary arteries result in significantly reduced blood flow to the relevant territories of the myocardium, thereby causing damage and impairing its function and eventually resulting in myocardial infarction (MI) or death. The affected / infarcted territories are typically seen as hypo-dense regions by cardiac computed tomography angiography (cardiac CTA).1 In the absence of automatic approaches, the assessment of these hypo-dense regions is user-dependent and requires extensive manipulation, with quantification requiring further examination of multiple adjacent slices, making this time consuming. Hence there is a need to provide robust tools that can help with clinical workflow. As a leader in cardiovascular imaging, Philips Healthcare continues to innovate in the field of advanced image processing in the field of cardiac imaging. The Philips Myocardial Defect Assessment application on IntelliSpace Portal is one such innovative solution that provides visual and quantitative assessment of hypodense regions of the myocardium seen from a single gated cardiac CTA scan (retrospectively-gated spiral or Step & Shoot Cardiac). Since this is adjunct information obtained from a single cardiac CTA scan, it does not require any additional scans, thus avoiding any additional increase in radiation dose. Depending on the type of scan performed, the radiation dose could range between 0.6 – 3.5 mSv (if Step & Shoot Cardiac and iterative reconstruction techniques were used) and 8 – 11 mSv (using retrospectively-gated spiral CTA with tube current modulation).2,3