Abstract:
Objective: To investigate the feasibility of 39 mL low contrast agent injection adopted for 320-row CT coronary artery imaging. Methods: Sampling among 100 patients (52 males and 48 females) with 320-slice CT coronary angiography for consistent data collection. The patients were randomly divided into low contrast group and control group with 50 patients respectively. The low-contrast agent group adopts three-phase injection protocol with 39 mL contrast agent in total, while the control group receives 50 m L contrast agent injection protocol for two phases. Measure and compare CT values of main blood vessels, signal-to-noise ratios and contrast-to-noise ratios. Then the coronary arteries are evaluated and analyzed by two experienced doctors. Results: There is no statistical difference reflected from gender ratio, age, weight, BMI, average heart rate during exposure, aortic root noise, SNR, superior vena cava, CNR
RCA1, and CNR
LM between the two groups (
P>0.05). Meanwhile, the comparison of CT values of arterial root, right atrium, right ventricle, RCA1, LM, and ventricular wall of the two groups reveals a statistical difference (
P<0.05). Among 1217 coronary segments, 94.91% (1155/1217) segments meet the diagnostic image quality requirement. The image quality acceptability rates of the low contrast group and the control group were 95.4% (555/582) and 94.5% (600/635) respectively, which reflects few statistical difference (
P>0.05). Conclusion: It's feasible to use a small-dose (39 mL) contrast agent injection in 320-slice CT coronary angiography with three-phase injection protocol, which is able to form qualified diagnosis images with less contrast agent injection.