Introduction
Two task forces, coordinated by the American Heart Association (AHA), have
recently produced scientific statements regarding the clinical utility and technical aspects of
cardiac CT in the assessment of coronary artery disease (CAD).
The first report (1) focused on the use of cardiac CT for the diagnosis of CAD on the basis
of coronary artery calcification.
This scientific statement from the AHA was published in October 2006 and served to update
previous documents from the association published in 1996 and 2000; the latter text was dedicated
to electron bean CT (EBCT).
This recent update introduces MDCT as another fast imaging modality for coronary artery
calcium quantification, and the two imaging techniques are compared throughout the report, which
discusses the technical aspects and clinical utility of calcium plaque detection as well as future
technical and clinical directions in the field.
The scientific information presented in the text is scored according to the level of evidence
and the class of recommendation, as per evidence-based medicine.
