Reproducibility of coronary calcium quantification in repeat examinations with retrospectively ECG-gated multisection spiral CT

High reproducibility is a key requirement for coronary calcium scoring in follow-up examinations. We investigated the inter-examination reproducibility of calcium scoring with retrospectively ECG-gated multisection spiral CT (MSCT). Fifty patients were examined twice with MSCT. Slices were reconstructed with retrospective ECG gating in the diastolic phase with 3-mm slice width and up to 125-ms temporal resolution. We calculated the Agatston score, calcium volume with and without isotropic interpolation, and calcium mass, and derived the mean and median variability. We investigated the change of variability with use of 3-mm non-overlapping and overlapping increments (2, 1.5, 1 mm). Use of overlapping increment results in considerably reduced interscan variability. We observed a minimum mean variability of 12% and a minimum median variability of 9% for the Agatston score. For volume and mass quantification we obtained a minimum mean variability of 7.5% and a minimum median variability of 5%. Multisection spiral CT enables coronary calcium quantification with high reproducibility in follow-up examinations mainly founded on image data with reduced partial-volume errors due to overlapping increment. (orig.)