Dear Cardiac Insider,
How much specialized training is enough to read coronary CT angiography (CCTA) images well? We really don't know. But a new study from Germany and the U.S. suggests that today's minimum requirement of a training session and 50 cases might not be enough.
The group examined 100 CCTA datasets using nine readers of widely varying experience levels, both before and after advanced training. In results compared with angiography, they found that training helped a lot, especially for the newer readers, but it wasn't enough to make them experts. Get the details here.
Postmortem cardiac imaging is coming into its own in Europe, and a new article by AuntMinnieEurope.com contributing writer Rosemary Frei shows one reason why: Coronary CTA, now that they've figured out how to perform it on cadavers, outperforms CT alone for determining if coronary disease was the cause of a patient's death.
Speaking of coronary disease, half of patients who present with extracardiac arterial disease are likely to have it as well, concluded researchers from the Netherlands in a story you'll find here. Even mummies had atherosclerosis.
Congenital heart disease is becoming more of a challenge as people born with often unseen problems in childhood start to develop adult problems prematurely, say researchers from Switzerland who advise people who were told long ago about the defects to undergo advanced imaging and know their status now. Learn more here.
Finally, we invite you to scroll through the links below for more news about cardiac imaging in Europe, right here in your Cardiac Imaging Digital Community.
