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Role of CT FFR in Translesional Gradient Evaluation, Setting of a Stent

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0:01

Okay, next case is a little nuanced.

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It's a 60 something year old patient with a known stent.

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So you already have a very high pretest risk just based on

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them having a prior stent.

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And I'm gonna show you that on the calcium score

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that's CRCA stent.

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So even if you don't get great history,

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which can happen occasionally, um, you're gonna know that

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that's the different type of interpretation for the RCA.

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And then you can see some scattered

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calcified plaque through the left.

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Um, now symptoms can recur in these patients

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or it can occur in new vessels.

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So first things first, let's try to find that RCA.

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Um, and there's your stent.

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So far I didn't see much at all,

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but um, the volume rendered kind of highlights it,

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but I just wanna lay it out for you and let's see.

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Yeah, not all that impressive.

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Bit of a slab touch of respiratory artifact.

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Uh, not the worst though. Um, okay.

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And you can see the distal vessel.

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While it does have a little bit of artifact, um,

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you can kind of clear that up.

0:56

Looking at multiple phases and looks pretty good to me.

1:00

I'm gonna now say we're gonna put that one to rest

1:03

and we'll go look at the left main.

1:04

Uh, a little bit of plaque but no stenosis.

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LAD, little more

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and fair amount

1:10

of calcium there looks a almost circumferential.

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Um, very wary now

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because I know that can be a cause

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of false negative angiography also can be a cause

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of false positive.

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So it's just that that's the hard task

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that we get sometimes with ct.

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I'm changing my phases to be as careful as I can to freeze,

1:29

oh, that looks like a good phase.

1:30

I feel more comfortable here. Um,

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but then right around here I feel less comfortable in

1:35

that I do see what looks like real calcified plaque.

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And another thing

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that really almost keeps me up at night is when I have this

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calcium that's similar to the density of the contrast bolus.

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It's a known phenomenon.

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One of my colleagues, Veit Bian actually

1:50

who first wrote it up, the idea

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that you can miss calcified plaque on a

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CTA if you're not careful.

1:56

But we're not gonna miss that.

1:57

But also it's hard not to say that's at least moderate.

2:01

Not sure it's a severe.

2:03

Um, now this is a not a great phase for the circumflex.

2:07

Let's sharpen that up.

2:08

And okay, right here, little bit of a

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lipid rich plaque in addition to the calcified plaque.

2:15

So the non stented vessels are the ones I have

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concerns about in this case.

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And you have a couple of, uh, segments here.

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If this all turns out to be nothing in

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the circum, I'm not shocked.

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But the LED hard to ignore that, you know, that kind

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of pitfall lesion and you can see a bit of abnormality.

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So before you go any further, um,

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you might wanna do A-C-T-F-F-R.

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Important to note that the stented lesion, um,

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with the some vendors is not allowed by the FDA.

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So we know they will by law have to decline the RCA.

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But my questions are on

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the left, so I think it's reasonable.

2:48

So with that in mind, we did that, of course,

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they said metallic stent, no go.

2:53

Um, in the LED, right

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where I was worried. So it's these two areas.

2:58

There's not a focal trans lesional gradient

3:00

that meets significance.

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It's only gets to, you know, in the border.

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And then it gradually goes down to abnormal.

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So these tend not to correlate with angiographic

3:10

or physiologically invasively evaluated, um, severe stenosis

3:14

or significant stenosis.

3:15

Same story on the circumflex. So, um, this is comforting.

3:19

We already know we're medically managing maximally

3:21

'cause we're on a stent and we might even ramp that a bit.

3:24

But, uh, low yield calf.

3:26

Um, so that was decided not to go further.

3:28

So again, you wanna look for a trans

3:29

lesional gradient that's positive.

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And this one's only borderline.

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So very reasonable to just continue with medical management,

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especially knowing stent's fine,

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the native vessels around the stent are fine.

3:39

And, um, there's no new severe stenosis.

Report

Faculty

Brian Ghoshhajra, MD, MBA, MSCCT

Academic Chief, Cardiovascular Imaging and Associate Chair, Operations Analytics

Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School

Tags

Vascular

Coronary arteries

Cardiac CT (SCCT Cat B1 Video Case)

Cardiac

CTA

CT

Angiography