Key result
Doppler-guided prospective ECG gating cuts radiation dose ~44% vs traditional gating with preserved accuracy.
Why the study?
Doppler ultrasound can predict optimal pulsing windows for coronary CTA, but its impact on radiation dose and diagnostic accuracy in high heart rate patients was unclear.
Does Doppler-guided prospective ECG gating reduce radiation dose and maintain diagnostic accuracy compared to traditional prospective ECG gating in patients with a heart rate >65 bpm undergoing coronary CTA?
RCT (n=119)
Blinded evaluators
Randomly divided
No
Does Doppler-guided prospective ECG gating reduce radiation dose and maintain diagnostic accuracy compared to traditional prospective ECG gating in patients with a heart rate >65 bpm undergoing coronary CTA?
Doppler-guided prospective ECG gating for coronary CTA in patients with high heart rates significantly reduces radiation exposure without compromising diagnostic accuracy compared to traditional gating.
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Supports Doppler-guided gating to lower radiation in high-HR coronary CTA; extends prior techniques with RCT confirmation of preserved accuracy.
PURPOSE: As Doppler ultrasound has been proven to be an effective tool to predict and compress the optimal pulsing windows, we evaluated the effective dose and diagnostic accuracy of coronary CT angiography (CTA) incorporating Doppler-guided prospective electrocardiograph (ECG) gating, which presets pulsing windows according to Doppler analysis, in patients with a heart rate >65 bpm. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 119 patients with a heart rate >65 bpm who were scheduled for invasive coronary angiography were prospectively studied, and patients were randomly divided into traditional prospective (n = 61) and Doppler-guided prospective (n = 58) ECG gating groups. The exposure window of traditional prospective ECG gating was set at 30%-80% of the cardiac cycle. For the Doppler group, the length of diastasis was analyzed by Doppler. For lengths greater than 90 ms, the pulsing window was preset during diastole (during 60%-80%); otherwise, the optimal pulsing intervals were moved from diastole to systole (during 30%-50%). RESULTS: The mean heart rates of the traditional ECG and the Doppler-guided group during CT scanning were 75.0±7.7 bpm (range, 66-96 bpm) and 76.5±5.4 bpm (range: 66-105 bpm), respectively. The results indicated that whereas the image quality showed no significant difference between the traditional and Doppler groups (P = 0.42), the radiation dose of the Doppler group was significantly lower than that of the traditional group (5.2±3.4 mSv vs. 9.3±4.5 mSv, P<0.001). The sensitivities of CTA applying traditional and Doppler-guided prospective ECG gating to diagnose stenosis on a segment level were 95.5% and 94.3%, respectively; specificities 98.0% and 97.1%, respectively; positive predictive values 90.7% and 88.2%, respectively; negative predictive values 99.0% and 98.7%, respectively. There was no statistical difference in concordance between the traditional and Doppler groups (P = 0.22). CONCLUSION: Doppler-guided prospective ECG gating represents an improved method in patients with a high heart rate to reduce effective radiation doses, while maintaining high diagnostic accuracy.
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Li et al. (2013) conducted an RCT in High heart rate (>65 bpm) requiring coronary CT angiography (n=119). Doppler-guided prospective ECG gating vs. Traditional prospective ECG gating was evaluated on Effective radiation dose (p=<0.001). Doppler-guided prospective ECG gating significantly reduced the effective radiation dose compared to traditional prospective ECG gating (5.2 mSv vs. 9.3 mSv, P<0.001) while maintaining high accuracy.
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