Acute chest pain in emergency room. Preliminary findings with 40-64-slice CT ECG-gated of the whole chest.

ECG-gated MDCT of the entire chest represents the latest technical advance in the diagnostic work-up of atypical chest pain. The authors report their preliminary experience with the use of 40 and 64-slice CT in the emergency room and recommend to study only patients with moderate likelihood of coronary artery disease. ECG-gated MDCT of the entire chest will be preferentially performed on 64-slice MDCT rather than 40-slice MDCT because it enable to reduce the scan time (18 seconds versus 28 seconds acquisition time), the volume of contrast medium (82 mL + 15 mL versus 97 mL + 15 mL of highly concentrated contrast agent for a patient of 70 kgs) and radiation exposure (17 mSv versus 19 mSv). Approximately 1500 to 2000 of images are produced and need to be analysed on a dedicated workstation by a radiologist expert in cardiac and thoracic disorders. At the present time, only a few studies exist in the literature showing some promising results but further large clinical studies are needed before to implement such sophisticated protocol in emergency room.