Advances in cardiac imaging

Lower iodine concentration injected at a low flow rate (group 1=0.75 g/s iodine) resulted in acceptable contrast enhancement in 53.8% of the patients only. There was no significant difference between a lower concentration of contrast injected at a high flow rate and a high concentration of contrast injected at a low flow rate (groups 2 and 3 ∼1 g/s iodine). A high concentration of contrast agent administered with a high flow rates (group 4=1.4 g/s iodine) at times resulted in arterial blood CT density reaching above 350 HU, which interfered visually with coronary calcifications [2]. We concluded [3] that the injection of ∼1 g/s iodine results in an optimal (250-300 HU) contrast enhancement for cardiac MDCT (Fig. 1). (orig.)