What is a coronary artery CT angiogram?
Coronary artery CT Angiography (CTA) is a special type of x-ray examination used to visualize blood flow in the vessels of the heart. Patients who have this test will have a small intravenous (I.V.) catheter placed in their arm and will receive an iodine-containing contrast dye to help ensure the best images possible of the coronary arteries. The same I.V. may be used to give a safe medication (commonly used by patients with high blood pressure and heart disease) to slow or stabilize the heart rate for better imaging results. During the examination, which takes about 10 minutes, X-rays pass through the body and are picked up by special detectors which give the final images. Typically, the higher the number of detectors, the better the image. For this reason, this technique is often called “multi-detector” or multi-slice” CT scanning. The New Jersey Institute of Radiology has a 64-slice multidetector CT, the highest number of detectors available for clinical imaging.
