Aug. 27, 2008 — Electrocardiographically gated 64-multidetector row coronary computed tomographic angiography (CCTA) was 99 percent as effective in ruling out obstructive coronary artery stenosis as the more expensive and invasive coronary angiography traditionally used by physicians, according to a multi-center study on the accuracy of cardiac imaging technology.
The study, funded by GE Healthcare and led by Matthew J. Budoff, M.D., a principal investigator at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, was conducted at 16 different sites with 230 volunteers with chest pain but no known coronary artery disease.
Researchers used electrocardiographically gated 64-multidetector row coronary computed tomographic angiography (CCTA) to examine the research volunteers. Each volunteer also underwent the more expensive and invasive coronary angiography for evaluating coronary artery stenosis.
The researchers found CCTA provided high diagnostic accuracy for detection of obstructive coronary stenosis at the thresholds of a 50 percent narrowing and at 70 percent stenosis. It also found CCTA was accurate 99 percent of the time in ruling out coronary artery stenosis.
The study, “Diagnostic Performance of 64-Multidetector Row Coronary Computed Tomographic Angiography for Evaluation of Coronary Artery Stenosis in Individuals Without Known Coronary Artery Disease,” appears in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
For more information: www.acc.org
March 13, 2026 
