CARDIAC COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY (Cardiac CT)

What is this?

Cardiac computed tomography or 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 occasionally it is used as a prelude to an EP procedure such as pulmonary vein isolation/left atrial ablation.