Measurement of coronary artery calcium volume using ultra-high-resolution computed tomography: A preliminary phantom and cadaver study

Fukumoto Wataru

Nagaoka Mami

Higaki Toru

Tatsugami Fuminari

Nakamura Yuko

Oostveen Luuk

Klein Willemijn

Prokop Mathias

Awai Kazuo

European Journal of Radiology Open

Objectives
In this phantom- and cadaver study we investigated the differences of coronary artery calcium (CAC) volume on ultra-high-resolution computed tomography (U-HRCT) scans and conventional CT.

Methods
We scanned a coronary calcium phantom and the coronary arteries of five cadavers using U-HRCT in normal- and super-high resolution (NR, SHR) mode. The NR mode was similar to conventional CT; 896 detector channels, a matrix size of 512, and a slice thickness of 0.5 mm were applied. In SHR mode, we used 1792 detector channels, a matrix size of 1024, and a slice thickness of 0.25 mm. The CAC volume on NR- and SHR images were recorded. Differences in the physical- and the calculated CAC volume were defined as the error value and compared between NR- and SHR images of the phantom. Differences between the CAC volume on NR- and SHR scans of the cadavers were also recorded.

Results
The mean error value was lower on SHR- than NR images of the phantom (14.0 %, SD 11.1 vs 20.1 %, SD 15.2, p = 0.01). The mean CAC volume was significantly higher on SHR- than NR images of the cadavers (153.4 mm3, SD 161.0 vs 144.7 mm3, SD 164.8, p < 0.01).

Conclusions
As small calcifications were more clearly visualized on U-HRCT images in SHR mode than on conventional (NR) CT scans, SHR imaging may facilitate the accurate quantification of the CAC.

Coronary artery calcium scores

Ultra-high-resolution CT

Cadaver

eng

Elsevier

© 2020 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.

[ISSN] 2352-0477

[DOI] 10.1016/j.ejro.2020.100253

[DOI] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejro.2020.100253