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Image Quality of Coronary Arteries on Non-electrocardiography-gated High-Pitch Dual-Source Computed Tomography in Children with Congenital Heart Disease

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Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate image quality of coronary artery imaging on non-electrocardiography (ECG)-gated high-pitch dual-source computed tomography (DSCT) in children with congenital heart disease (CHD) and to assess factors affecting image quality. We retrospectively reviewed the records of 142 children with CHD who underwent non-ECG-gated high-pitch DSCT. The subjective image quality of the proximal coronary segments was graded using a five-point scale. A score <3 represented a non-diagnostic image. Age, body weight, and heart rate were compared between the two groups: patients with good diagnostic image quality in all four segments and patients with at least one segment with non-diagnostic image quality. Predictors of image quality were assessed by multivariate logistic regression, including age, body weight, and heart rate. Four-hundred-fifty-seven of the 568 segments (80.5%) had diagnostic image quality. Patients with non-diagnostic segments were significantly younger (21.6 ± 25.5 months), had lower body weight (7.82 ± 5.00 kg), and a faster heart rate (123 ± 23.7 beats/min) (each p < 0.05) than patients with diagnostic image quality in all four segments (30.6 ± 20.7 months, 10.3 ± 4.00 kg, and 113 ± 21.6 beats/min, respectively; each p < 0.05). The multivariate logistic regression revealed that body weight (odds ratio 1.228; p = 0.029) was a significant predictor of image quality. Non-ECG-gated high-pitch DSCT provided adequate image quality of the proximal coronary segments in children with CHD. Lower body weight was a factor that led to poorer image quality of the coronary arteries.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express our appreciation to Mr. Noriaki Akagi (Division of Radiology, Okayama University Hospital) for his technical advice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Okayama University Medical School, 2-5-1 Kitaku Shikatacho, Okayama, 700-8558, Japan

    Yuichiro Kanie, Shuhei Sato, Akihiro Tada & Susumu Kanazawa

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  1. Yuichiro Kanie
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  2. Shuhei Sato
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  3. Akihiro Tada
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  4. Susumu Kanazawa
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Correspondence to Yuichiro Kanie.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. For this type of study, formal consent is not required.

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Kanie, Y., Sato, S., Tada, A. et al. Image Quality of Coronary Arteries on Non-electrocardiography-gated High-Pitch Dual-Source Computed Tomography in Children with Congenital Heart Disease. Pediatr Cardiol 38, 1393–1399 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00246-017-1675-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00246-017-1675-9

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