CT has established itself as an excellent cardiac imaging modality. But there can still be some fine-tuning in terms of exactly how and when to use it, especially for assessing people presenting with chest pain.
Two studies in JAMA Cardiology tackle this head-on, presenting new evidence that supports a more conservative – and precise – approach to determining which patients get follow-up testing. The studies also address concerns that using coronary CT angiography (CCTA) as an initial test before invasive catheterization could lead to unnecessary testing.
In the PRECISE study, researchers analyzed 2.1k patients from 2018 to 2021 who had stable symptoms of suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). Patients were randomized to a usual testing strategy (such as cardiac SPECT or stress echo), or a precision strategy that employed CCTA with selected fractional flow reserve CT (FFR-CT).
The precision strategy group was further subdivided into a subgroup of those at minimal risk of cardiac events (20%) for whom testing was deferred to see if utilization could be reduced even further. In the precision strategy group….
- Rates of invasive catheterization without coronary obstruction were lower (4% vs. 11%)
- Testing was lower versus the usual testing group (84% vs. 94%)
- Positive tests were more common (18% vs. 13%)
- 64% of the deferred-testing subgroup got no testing at all
- Adverse events were higher, but the difference was not statistically significant
To expand on the analysis, JAMA Cardiology published a related study that further investigated the safety of the deferred-testing strategy at one-year follow-up. Researchers compared adverse events in the deferred testing group to those who got the usual testing strategy, finding that the deferred testing group had…
- A lower incidence rate of adverse events (0.9 vs. 5.9)
- A lower rate of invasive cardiac cath without obstructive CAD per 100 patient years (1.0 vs. 6.5)
The results from both studies show that a strategy of deferring testing for low-risk CAD patients while sending higher-risk patients to CCTA and FFR-CT is clinically effective with no adverse impact on patient safety.
The Takeaway
The new findings don’t take any of the luster off cardiac CT; they simply add to the body of knowledge demonstrating when to use – and not to use – this incredibly powerful tool for directing patient care. And in the emerging era of precision medicine, that’s what it’s all about.
