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State of the art modern CT scanners with a scan rate of up to 320 mm/s can acquire all the images within a 1-second X-ray exposure, avoiding the problems of respiratory motion, cardiac motion and contrast draining from the pulmonary circulation during the study. Even though the actual scan may be completed in 1 second or less, considerable ...
A physician may recommend cardiac imaging to support a diagnosis of a heart condition. Medical specialty professional organizations discourage the use of routine cardiac imaging during pre-operative assessment for patients about to undergo low or mid-risk non-cardiac surgery because the procedure carries risks and is unlikely to result in the change of a patient's management. [1]
By comparison, a chest X-ray carries a dose of approximately 0.02-0.2 mSv [10] and natural background radiation exposure is around 2.3 mSv/year. [11] Thus, each cardiac CT scan carried out with current protocols (dose approximately 1 mSv) is equivalent to approximately 5-50 chest X-rays or less than 1 year of background radiation.
A chest radiograph, chest X-ray (CXR), or chest film is a projection radiograph of the chest used to diagnose conditions affecting the chest, its contents, and nearby structures. Chest radiographs are the most common film taken in medicine.
A transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE) is the most common type of echocardiogram, which is a still or moving image of the internal parts of the heart using ultrasound.In this case, the probe (or ultrasonic transducer) is placed on the chest or abdomen of the subject to get various views of the heart.
Contrast CT, or contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CECT), is X-ray computed tomography (CT) using radiocontrast. Radiocontrasts for X-ray CT are generally iodine-based types . [ 1 ] This is useful to highlight structures such as blood vessels that otherwise would be difficult to delineate from their surroundings.
A long, thin, flexible tube called a catheter is used to administer the X-ray contrast agent at the desired area to be visualized. The catheter is threaded into an artery in the forearm , and the tip is advanced through the arterial system into the major coronary artery.
Contrast agents are sometimes used in CT scans of the chest to accentuate or enhance the differences in radiopacity between vascularized and less vascularized structures, but a standard chest CT scan is usually non-contrasted (i.e. "plain") and relies on different algorithms to produce various series of digitalized images known as view or "window".