Dr. John Miller presented research at the Radiological Society of North America’s 94th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting on Friday, Dec. 5 about Mayo Clinic’s examination of the use of coronary CTA and examination of the criteria that physicians use to decide when the coronary CTA should be ordered.
Coronary CTA is a new test that painlessly and non-invasively detects plaque build-up in the coronary arteries. But because the test is painless and non-invasive, coronary CTA has drawn national attention as a test that could be overused, Dr. Miller says. Recently, the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Radiology released appropriateness criteria to help physicians know when a coronary CTA is appropriate or inappropriate in a given patient. Dr. Miller and colleagues attempted to apply these criteria to 251 coronary CTAs performed in 2007 over six months.
Dr. Miller and colleagues found that 17 percent of the coronary CTAs were deemed inappropriate by the critiera, suggesting that the test was overused in those patients, he says. Dr. Miller and colleagues also found that 45 percent of coronary CTAs were not classifiable according to the criteria, meaning that the criteria gave no recommendations for those particular patients. This suggests that the criteria should be refined if they are going to be useful for physicians and third party payers in deciding if a coronary CTA should be ordered in a particular patient, Dr. Miller says.
Dr. Miller discusses the study and its goals.
