Radiological prerequisites for spatial intracoronary orientation and quantitation in interventional cardiology.

The prerequisite for the safe performance of an intracoronary intervention is an optimal angiographic visualization. This includes high resolution film and video equipment and the acquisition of spatial information about anatomic details during the procedure. The geometric properties of modern biplane multidirectional X-ray equipment allow for exact spatial computations. These can be used for optimal portraying of coronary segments by computed triple orthogonal projections. In addition, an improvement in quantitative angiography is possible by calculation of the exact radiological magnification factor of coronary stenosis.