FREIBURG, Germany Heart disease could be detected years earlier in high-risk patients thanks to next-generation scanning technology. He called ultra high resolution computed tomography (UHR-CT), this new type of imaging provides excellent quality and accurate diagnosis of coronary artery disease non-invasively, identifying threats years before they manifest.

Technology in use today – Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA): It is quite effective in ruling out coronary artery disease in patients at low or intermediate risk. However, detection of high-risk individuals can be challenging due to a high prevalence of calcifications, which can often appear more extensive than they actually are and lead to false positives.

“As a result, patients can often suffer unnecessarily invasive, test This is the reason why current guidelines do not recommend using CCTA high risk individuals,” says lead author Dr. Muhammad Hagar of the University of Freiburg, Germany, in a media release.

This innovative tool uses a photon counting detector. In the first comprehensive study of its kind, researchers compared its diagnostic accuracy with the standard of reference of invasive coronary angiography (ICA) in 68 patients with severe aortic valve stenosis, a common valve disease but serious that prevents or blocks. blood flow from the heart

The UHR-CCTA proved to be highly sensitive and specific for coronary artery disease detection, achieving an average overall image quality score of 1.5 on the 5-point Likert scale (where one represents excellent and five means non-diagnostic). Approximately 80% of the segments were rated as good or excellent, indicating that this technique may soon be available for high-risk patients.

“It appears that the spectrum of patients who benefit from undergoing noninvasive CCTA has been significantly expanded with photon counting detector technology. This is excellent news for these patients and the images community,” says Dr. Hagar.

The high resolution of UHR-CCTA results from an increase in the number of emitted photons, but this also leads to a higher radiation exposure compared to conventional CT scanners. Currently, the technology is in its early stages and researchers are developing methods to reduce radiation exposure.

“Currently, the technique is feasible for high-risk patients, in whom the benefits outweigh the risks, but it should not be applied to all referred patients. cardiac CT scan,” adds Dr. Hagar.

Photon-counting CT is relatively rare worldwide, but experts predict the technology will become more common over the next decade.

“At the University of Freiburg, we had the privilege of working with the technology since its introduction and I am convinced that photon-counting CT is the start of a new generation of CT. scannerssimilar to the introduction of multislice CT 30 years ago,” says Dr. Hagar.

The team is now investigating the diagnostic potential of photon-counting CT technology in other clinical settings, such as oncology imaging, and expanding their research to include groups for whom CT is not currently feasible, such as patients with coronary stents. They are also exploring the potential for cardiac muscle assessment with photon-counting CT. Early results suggest the technology could improve soft tissue resolution, greatly benefiting disease characterization.

“These are exciting times for me, and it’s great to be part of a very active group working with this new technology,” concludes Dr. Hagar.

This research is published in the journal Radiology.

South West News Service writer Mark Waghorn contributed to this report.