Heart Rate-Dependent Degree of Motion Artifacts in Coronary CT Angiography Acquired by a Novel Purpose-Built Cardiac CT Scanner

Although reaching target heart rate (HR) before coronary CT angiography (CCTA) is still of importance, adequate HR control remains a challenge for many patients. Purpose-built cardiac scanners may provide optimal image quality at higher HRs by further improving temporal resolution. We aimed to compare the amount of motion artifacts on CCTA acquired using a dedicated cardiac CT (DCCT) compared to a conventional multidetector CT (MDCT) scanner. We compared 80 DCCT images to 80 MDCT scans matched by sex, age, HR, and coronary dominance. Image quality was graded on a per-patient, per-vessel and per-segment basis. Motion artifacts were assessed using Likert scores (1: non-diagnostic, 2: severe artifacts, 3: mild artifacts, 4: no artifacts). Patients were stratified into four groups according to HR (<60/min, 60-65/min, 66-70/min and >70/min). Overall, 2328 coronary segments were evaluated. DCCT demonstrated superior overall image quality compared to MDCT (3.7 +/- 0.4 vs. 3.3 +/- 0.7, p < 0.001). DCCT images yielded higher Likert scores in all HR ranges, which was statistically significant in the 60-65/min, 66-70/min and >70/min ranges (3.9 +/- 0.2 vs. 3.7 +/- 0.2, p = 0.008; 3.5 +/- 0.5 vs. 3.1 +/- 0.6, p = 0.048 and 3.5 +/- 0.4 vs. 2.7 +/- 0.7, p < 0.001, respectively). Using a dedicated cardiac scanner results in fewer motion artifacts, which may allow optimal image quality even in cases of high HRs.

Automated summary

This study compared the amount of motion artifacts in coronary CT angiography images acquired using a dedicated cardiac CT scanner and a conventional multidetector CT scanner. The results showed that the dedicated cardiac CT scanner yielded fewer motion artifacts, allowing for optimal image quality even at high heart rates.