The state of diagnosis of ischemic heart disease by low-invasive methods using CT and MRI in our hospital

Recently, cardiac examination of computed tomography (cardiac CT) using multidetector row CT (MDCT) has become a useful method for diagnosing coronary stenosis and plaques. On the other hand, cardiac examination of magnetic resonance imaging (cardiac MRI) has become an important modality for diagnosing cardiac function, myocardial dynamics and ischemia. Our hospital does not have equipments of conventional coronary angiography and scintigram, and so we attempt to diagnose ischemic heart disease (IHD) by low-invasive examinations using MDCT and MRI. We performed evaluation of coronary stenosis and coronary plaques by CT coronary angiography (CTCA) using 16 or 64 row CT in 348 patients (176 men and 172 women; mean age 67.6±10.5 years). We also performed evaluation of left ventricular wall function, myocardial ischemia, myocardial viability, and coronary stenosis by one-stop-shop study using MRI of 1.5 tesla in 67 patients (31 men and 36 women; mean age 70.0±11.6 years). In this study, we reported the states of cardiac CT and cardiac MRI in our hospital, and studied how to use both examinations properly for diagnosis of IHD. We expect that cardiac CT and cardiac MRI will be both established low-invasive examinations of screening for diagnosing IHD in future. (author)