Practical approaches to overcoming artifacts in coronary CT angiography

John R. Lesser, MD, Bjorn J. Flygenring, MD, Tom Knickelbine, MD, Terrence Longe, MD, Robert S. Schwartz, MD

Abstract. Coronary CT angiography is a novel noninvasive imaging technology that provides a unique view of cardiac and coronary artery pathologies. Despite proper preparation, artifacts and noisy scans can occur and are usually caused by cardiac or respiratory motion or both and obesity. This article for�mulates a practical approach for salvaging difficult or potentially uninterpretable studies by diagnosing the causes of artifacts and providing an approach for scan improvement with the reconstruction of new data sets. Multiple pictorial examples of scan editing are provided. In addition, tables link the likeli�hood that a specific cause of an artifact will allow a scan to be salvaged. An approach for interpreting scans with excess noise is also discussed. � 2009 Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography. All rights reserved.