Ed Nicol, MD, MBA, FSCCT, consultant cardiologist and honorary senior clinical lecturer with Kings College London and president-elect of the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT), discusses what he sees as the big technology advances in cardiac CT.
He gave a short list of what he sees as the novel cardiovascular CT technologies to watch. These include:
• Photon-counting CT to reduce radiation dose, greatly improve image resolution and offer built-in spectral CT in every scan.
• Computation flow technology moving beyond FFR-CT to include sheer stress information inside blood vessels. It is widely believed sheer stress plays a key role to the formation of plaques and will offer potential new ways to assess patient risk and to help develop new therapies.
• Perivascular fat attenuation is a new imaging algorithm that looks at the amount of fat in the wall or coronary arteries as a biomarker for inflammation. It is possible this can be used to track inflammation around vulnerable plaques and track if treatments like statins and anti-inflammatories are effective in treating or reversing cardiovascular disease.
Other technologies that have ben around for a few years, but have not yet gained traction in cardiology include CT perfusion imaging and spectral CT. He said both technologies have potential. In the case of perfusion, other modalities like MRI can do a better job. In the case of spectral, or dual-energy CT, more clinical evidence is needed to show the value of this technology to justify additional costs. However, this may change if the CT industry moves toward photon-counting systems, where spectral CT is build into every scan and may see much wider access and use.
Watch Nicol discussed the growing role of AI in cardiac CT in the related VIDEO: The role of AI in cardiac imaging.
Dave Fornell has covered healthcare for more than 17 years, with a focus in cardiology and radiology. Fornell is a 5-time winner of a Jesse H. Neal Award, the most prestigious editorial honors in the field of specialized journalism. The wins included best technical content, best use of social media and best COVID-19 coverage. Fornell was also a three-time Neal finalist for best range of work by a single author. He produces more than 100 editorial videos each year, most of them interviews with key opinion leaders in medicine. He also writes technical articles, covers key trends, conducts video hospital site visits, and is very involved with social media. E-mail: dfornell@innovatehealthcare.com