RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 First head-to-head comparison of effective radiation dose from low-dose 64-slice CT with prospective ECG-triggering versus invasive coronary angiography JF Heart JO Heart FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Cardiovascular Society SP 1656 OP 1661 DO 10.1136/hrt.2008.162420 VO 95 IS 20 A1 Herzog, B A A1 Wyss, C A A1 Husmann, L A1 Gaemperli, O A1 Valenta, I A1 Treyer, V A1 Landmesser, U A1 Kaufmann, P A YR 2009 UL http://heart.bmj.com/content/95/20/1656.abstract AB Background: Reduction of radiation burden of multidetector computed tomography coronary angiography (CTCA) has remained an important task.Objective: To compare effective radiation dose of low-dose 64-slice CTCA using prospective ECG-triggering versus diagnostic invasive coronary angiography (CA).Methods: 42 patients referred for elective invasive CA owing to suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) were prospectively enrolled to undergo a low-dose CTCA without calcium scoring within the same day before CA. Dose-area product of diagnostic invasive CA and dose-length product of CTCA were measured, converted into effective radiation dose and compared using Mann-Whitney U tests. In addition, accuracy of CTCA to detect CAD (coronary artery narrowing ⩾50%) was assessed using invasive CA as standard of reference. On an intention-to-diagnose basis all non-evaluative vessels were included in the analysis and censored as positive.Results: The estimated mean effective radiation dose was 8.5 (4.4) mSv (range 1.4–20.5 mSv) for diagnostic invasive CA, and 2.1 (0.7) mSv (range 1.0–3.3 mSv) for CTCA (p<0.001). 19 patients (42.9%) had no CAD by invasive CA. 40 (95.2%) patients have been correctly classified as having CAD (23/23) or no CAD (17/19). Over 97% (551/567) of segments were evaluable. Vessel-based analysis revealed sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value of 94.2% (CI 0.8% to 1.0%), 94.8% (CI 09% to 1.0%), 89.0% (CI 0.8% to 1.0%), 97.4% (CI 09% to 1.0%) and an accuracy of 94.6%.Conclusions: Low dose CTCA allows evaluation of CAD with high accuracy, but delivers a significantly less effective radiation dose to patients compared to diagnostic invasive CA.