WEDNESDAY, Oct. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Visualization of the coronary arteries by cardiac computed tomography angiography (CTA) can diagnose coronary artery disease and predict mortality in individuals with suspected disease, according to a report in the Oct. 14 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Matthew P. Ostrom, M.D., and colleagues from the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center in Torrance examined outcomes in 2,538 patients without known coronary artery disease (mean age 59 years) who underwent cardiac CTA by electron beam tomography.
The researchers report that during a mean follow-up of 78 months, 86 patients (3.4 percent) died. After adjusting for conventional risk factors for coronary disease and coronary artery calcification, the investigators found that CTA-diagnosed coronary artery disease was an independent predictor of mortality. Adding coronary artery calcification to CTA-diagnosed disease significantly increased the concordance index. Compared with the group without coronary artery disease, the risk of CTA-diagnosed disease increased with the severity of lesions and extent of disease (risk-adjusted hazard ratios increasing from 1.7- to 2.6-fold for three-vessel non-obstructive to three-vessel obstructive disease).
The study "contains the very reassuring message that the absence of stenosis and non-obstructive plaque is associated with a good prognosis, even in a patient population that was most likely largely symptomatic," Stephan Achenbach, M.D., from the University of Erlangen in Germany, writes in an accompanying editorial. "However, the results do not justify the use of CTA as a screening tool for asymptomatic, primary prevention patients."
A study co-author has a financial relationship with General Electric, and the author of the editorial reports a financial relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.
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