Cardiac computed tomographyor cardiac CT, is a painless test that uses an x-ray machine to take clear, detailed pictures of the heart. Doctors use this test to look for heart problems.

During a cardiac CT scan, an x-ray machine will move around your body in a circle. The machine will take a picture of each part of your heart. A computer will put the pictures together to make a three-dimensional (3D) picture of the whole heart.

Usually an iodine-based dye (contrast dye) is injected into one of your veins during the scan. The contrast dye highlights your coronary (heart) arteries on the x-ray pictures. This type of CT scan is called a coronary CT coronary angiography, or CTCA.

Doctors usually use cardiac CT to help detect blockages in the coronary artery (CTCA) or evaluate coronary calcium (‘calcium scoring’), although occassionally it is used as a prelude to an EP procedure such as pulmonary vein isolation/left atrial ablation.

Heart and Vascular Institute/ Flinders Cardiac
Suite 606, level 6
Flinders Private Hospital
Bedford Park 5042
Telephone: 08 8177 1599 | Facsimile: 08 8177 1589