Diagnostic Value of Delayed Contrast-Enhanced Cardiac Computed Tomography for Detecting Left Atrial Appendage Thrombus in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation

Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine

article

Xiang-Nan Li¹  Jing-Xi Wang¹  Qing Wei²  Xian-Bo Yu³  Yu-Tao Zhou¹  Xiao-Yan Ma¹  Na Zhao¹  Bin Lu¹ 

[1] State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease, Department of Radiology, National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, Fuwai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College;State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease, Department of Ultrasonography, National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, Fuwai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College;CT Collaboration, Siemens Healthineers Ltd.

关键词: computed tomography angiography;    atrial fibrillation;    thrombosis;    echocardiography;    transesophageal;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fcvm.2022.847163

学科分类：地球科学(综合)

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Objective Delayed enhancement cardiac CT is a reliable tool for the diagnosis of left atrial appendage thrombus but limited for scanning heterogeneity. We aimed to explore the improvement of the 1 and 3-min delay phase at the diagnostic level to detect left atrial appendage thrombus, in order to set up a reasonable CT scanning scheme. Materials and Methods A total of 6,524 patients were continuously retrieved from January 2015 to September 2020 retrospectively. The patients had undergone Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) and cardiac CT with complete period include the arterial enhancement phase, 1 and 3-min delay phase, TEE were used as the reference standard. The final study included 329 patients. Three experienced radiologists independently assessed each phase of the cardiac CT images for thrombus diagnosis. We explored the improvement of the diagnostic ability of different delayed contrast-enhanced phases for left atrial appendage thrombus detection. Multiple logistic regression analysis were used for further high-risk stratification to avoid an additional 1-min delayed scan. Results In total, 29 thrombosis were detected at TEE. For all cardiac CT phases, sensitivity and negative predictive were 100%. The specificity were 0.54, 0.93, and 1.00, respectively; The positive predictive values (PPV) were 0.17, 0.57, and 1.00, respectively; Area under curve (AUC) were 0.75, 0.95, and 0.98, respectively. High risk factors that cannot be clearly diagnosed with 1-min delay phase included reduced cardiac function, increased CHA2DS2-VAScscore and left atrial enlargement. Compared with the arterial enhanced phase, increased radiation doses in the 1 and 3-min delay phases were 1.7 ± 1.3 msv and 1.5 ± 0.8 msv (mean ± standard deviation). Conclusion Using TEE as the reference standard, early contrast-enhanced CT scanning with 1 and 3-min delay is necessary for the diagnosis of left appendage thrombus, which could significantly improve the diagnostic efficiency. Patients with high-risk stratification are suitable for direct 3-min delayed scanning.

【 授权许可】

CC BY