An unsuspected metastasis of liposarcoma of the heart was detected on a computed tomographic (CT) examination of the chest. Further CT study with i.v. contrast administration gave excellent delineation of the tumor. Compared with two-dimensional echocardiography and angiocardiography, CT was best at showing the myocardial and intrapericardial extension of the tumor, but did not show movement of...

Multislice CT scanners are the newest class of CT scanners and they have not one but many detectors. These scanners can acquire up to 4 slices of data from the body in the same time it takes a single-slice CT scanner to acquire one. Multislice CT allows for rapid cardiac imaging during a single breath-hold. A multislice scanner operated in helical mode provides information that can be used to r...

Cardiac CT (CCT) is rapidly evolving as a noninvasive imaging modality. Newer technologic developments in CCT allow the comprehensive assessment of cardiovascular anatomy, including the coronary arteries. There are special considerations regarding obtaining and accurately interpreting CCT studies. On completion of this article, the reader should be able to describe the issues related to adequat...

Dear Editor, A 40-year-old female presented acutely with syncope and recurrent ventricular tachycardia (VT) requiring repeated cardioversion. Transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE) revealed mildly depressed systolic function of 40% to 45% with normal right ventricular size and function. Coronary angiogram revealed insignifi cant coronary artery disease (CAD). Biopsy of enlarged mediastinal lymph no...

OBJECTIVE To discuss the recent advances in computed tomography (CT) and to present a simplified approach to CT of the chest to facilitate the understanding and diagnosis of common acute thoracic abnormalities in the critically ill patient. DATA SOURCES Published articles and texts on thoracic disorders and CT diagnosis. SUMMARY OF REVIEW In the acutely ill patient with complex pulmonary an...

We describe a case of new-onset heart failure in a patient in whom cardiac CT enabled the non-invasive diagnosis of isolated non-compaction and associated functional abnormalities of the left ventricle with the concomitant evaluation of coronary arteries. This case highlights the utility of cardiac CT for the morphological and functional evaluation of the heart as a single imaging modality.

In this chapter, we present an automatic heart segmentation algorithm for the diagnosis of coronary artery diseases (CAD). The goal is to visualize the heart from a cardiac CT image with irrelevant tissues such as the lungs, rib cage, pulmonary veins, pulmonary arteries and left atrial appendage hidden so that doctors can clearly see the major coronary artery trees, aorta and bypass arteries if...

Diagnosis of cardiac sarcoidosis is often challenging. Whereas cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) and positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) are most commonly used to evaluate patients, PET/CT using radiolabeled somatostatin receptor (SSTR) ligands for visualization of inflammation might represent a more specific alternative. This study...