Cardiac Study Center-At the Forefront of Cardiology

Mathematically, the result of a CT scan is a 3 dimensional matrix of numbers representing the radiodensity of the different parts of the body examined. Let us call this matrix the volume. Now consider a certain level of radiodensity and cast an imaginary ray through the volume. There are two possibilities: (a) our ray goes through the volume without hitting a point of the given or greater radiodensity, (b) there is a point at which the ray first hits a value equal or greater than the threshold given. Mark this point. Then move the ray around (say, parallel to itself) and mark all these "first hit" points. For instance, if one selects a value characteristic to the bone then one may expect that the set of the "first hit" points will depict the surface of the bone within the volume. Usually the surfaces belonging to different thresholds are colored artificially so that they look like the original tissue.

Dr. Needham Ward - Visit our cardiac study center for CT Angiography, Screening diagnostic services, and other cardiology services.

Atrial fibrillation is a common problem that can sometimes be cured by isolating aberrant electrical conduction pathways from the left atrium into pulmonary veins. It is important to treat all the pulmonary veins that enter the left atrium, but the anatomy and number of such veins varies among individuals.
Recently, CT has been proven to be an effective method for locating and evaluating the size of the pulmonary veins at the left atrium prior to treatment.
A January 2004 study in The American Journal of Cardiology compared CT with transesophageal echocardiography (TEE), intracardiac echocardiography (ICE), and venography. CT found the most pulmonary veins followed by ICE, TEE and venography were less effective and not as accurate as CT or ICE at measuring the pulmonary vein diameter.

Computed tomography (CT), originally known as computed axial tomography (CAT) or body section roentgenography, is a medical imaging method employing tomography. Digital geometry processing is used to generate a three-dimensional image of the internals of an object from a large series of two-dimensional X-ray images taken around a single axis of rotation. The word "tomography" is derived from the Greek tomos (slice) and graphia (describing). CT produces a series of axial images that can be manipulated through a process known as windowing in order to recreate the image in a different plane.

With the advent of subsecond rotation combined with multi-slice CT (up to 64 slices), high resolution and high speed can be obtained at the same time, allowing excellent imaging of the coronary arteries. Images with a high temporal resolution are formed by updating a proportion of the data set used for image reconstruction as it is scanned. In this way individual frames in a cardiac CT investigation are significantly shorter than the shortest tube rotation time. It is uncertain whether this modality will replace the invasive coronary catheterization.

Dual Source CT scanners, introduced in 2005, allow higher temporal resolution when acquiring images of the heart, allowing a greater number of patients to be scanned.