Conventional computerized tomography of the heart.

Ungated cardio-CT provides good morphologic information in the case of congenital heart disease, volume or pressure loading, left ventricular aneurysm, tumours, thrombi, cardiac calcifications and pericardial diseases. It allows qualitative assessments of myocardial thickness and perfusion of coronary bypass grafts. ECG-gated cardio-CT allows a quantitative assessment of systolic and diastolic myocardial thickness, volume calculation of cardiac cavities and evaluation of functional parameters. The correlation of the calculated left ventricular ejection fraction comparing laevocardiography and ECG-gated cardio-CT was poor (r = 0.7) mainly due to the comparable poor time resolution on the side of cardio-CT (approximately 0.1s). The quantitative analysis of regional wall motion based on cardio-CT showed for the diagnosis of pathologic wall motion a specificity of 80.5%, sensitivity of 73.9% and accuracy of 75.7%. Side effects must be taken into account following the injection of 200-250 ml hyperosmolar contrast medium during 5-10 minutes which causes intravascular fluid retention and cardiac volume loading. Patients prone to cardiac decompensation should be excluded from cardio-CT examinations.