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Health Dictionary

Reliable, easy-to-read patient information on common medical conditions ā€” written in plain language, free of jargon, and grounded in current evidence. Browse the most frequent diagnoses, understand what they mean for everyday life, and learn which steps and questions help you have a focused conversation with your doctor.

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Dilated cardiomyopathy CT

Introduction

Overview

Overview

Cardiac CT scanning with angiography (CTA) can be helpful in detecting the complication of heart failure, as well excluding ischemia as a cause of dilated cardiomyopathy (calcium coronary score and myocardial perfusion analysis).

CT scan

CT scan

Cardiac CT scanning with angiography (CTA) can be useful to:

  • Diagnose heart failure: by calculating the biventricular volume and ejection fraction with good correlation to echocardiography.
  • Assessing the regional wall motion (with cine-loop formatting).[1]
  • Excluding ischemia as a cause for DCM (Cardiac CTA has a 98% diagnostic sensitivity and 97% specificity in excluding ischemic cardiomyopathy). Also, Myocardial perfusion analysis of the coronary arteries is also beneficial.[2]
  • Differential diagnosis of DCM from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, and left ventricular noncompaction.[3]
Cardiac CT scan showing enlarged cardiac chambers, in particular dilated ventricles. Case Courtesy: James Heliman, MD[4]
References

References

  1. ā†‘ Lessick J, Mutlak D, Rispler S, Ghersin E, Dragu R, Litmanovich D; et al. (2005). “Comparison of multidetector computed tomography versus echocardiography for assessing regional left ventricular function”. Am J Cardiol. 96 (7): 1011ā€“5. doi:10.1016/j.amjcard.2005.05.062. PMIDĀ 16188534.
  2. ā†‘ Bhatti S, Hakeem A, Yousuf MA, Al-Khalidi HR, Mazur W, Shizukuda Y (2011). “Diagnostic performance of computed tomography angiography for differentiating ischemic vs nonischemic cardiomyopathy”. J Nucl Cardiol. 18 (3): 407ā€“20. doi:10.1007/s12350-011-9346-3. PMIDĀ 21328027.
  3. ā†‘ Levine A, Hecht HS (2015). “Cardiac CT Angiography in Congestive Heart Failure”. J Nucl Med. 56 Suppl 4: 46Sā€“51S. doi:10.2967/jnumed.114.150441. PMIDĀ 26033904.
  4. ā†‘ https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/DifCardioMag.png/

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Abdelrahman Ibrahim Abushouk, MD[2]