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Aims: Coronary CT angiography (CCTA) is an accurate non-invasive tool for the evaluation of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). However, inability to sustain a long breath-hold, high heart rate (HR) and atrial fibrillation may affect image quality. Moreover, radiation exposure is still a matter of some concern. A scanner combining 0.23-mm spatial resolution, new iterative reconstruction and fast gantry rotation time has been recently introduced in the clinical field. The aims of our study were to evaluate interpretability, radiation exposure and diagnostic accuracy of CCTA performed with the latest generation of cardiac-CT scanners compared to invasive coronary angiography (ICA) in the assessment of bypass grafts, and non-grafted and post-anastomotic native coronary arteries., Methods and Results: We prospectively enrolled 300 patients undergoing clinically indicated CCTA with a 16-cm z-axis coverage, 256-detector rows, and 0.28-sec gantry rotation time scanner. Coronary artery and graft interpretability, image quality and effective dose (ED) were assessed in all patients and diagnostic accuracy was evaluated in a subgroup of 100 patients who underwent ICA. Mean HR during the scan was 69.6 ± 10.8. Sinus rhythm was present in 118 patients with HR < 75 bpm and in 112 patients with HR ≥ 75 bpm, while 70 patients had atrial fibrillation. CABG interpretability was 100%. Compared to ICA, CCTA was able to correctly detecting occlusions or significant stenoses of all CABG segments. Overall interpretability of native coronary segments was 95.6%. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy of coronary arteries were 98.3%, 97.4%, 93.1%, 99.3% and 96.5%, respectively. The diagnostic accuracy in a patient based analysis was 95.2%. Mean ED was 3.14 ± 1.7 mSv., Conclusions: The novel whole-heart coverage CT scanner allows to evaluating CABG and native coronary arteries with excellent interpretability and low radiation exposure even in the presence of unfavorable heart rhythm., (Copyright © 2020 Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Recent studies demonstrated a significant improvement in the diagnostic performance of coronary CT angiography (CCTA) for the evaluation of in-stent restenosis (ISR). However, coronary stent assessment is still challenging, especially because of beam-hardening artifacts due to metallic stent struts and high atherosclerotic burden of non-stented segments. Adenosine-stress myocardial perfusion assessed by CT (CTP) recently demonstrated to be a feasible and accurate tool for evaluating the functional significance of coronary stenoses in patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). Yet, scarce data are available on the performance of CTP in patients with previous stent implantation., Aim of the Study: We aim to assess the diagnostic performance of CCTA alone, CTP alone and CCTA plus CTP performed with a new scanner generation using quantitative invasive coronary angiography (ICA) and invasive fractional flow reserve (FFR) as standard of reference., Methods: We will enroll 300 consecutive patients with previous stent implantation, referred for non-emergent and clinically indicated invasive coronary angiography (ICA) due to suspected ISR or progression of CAD in native coronary segments. All patients will be subjected to stress myocardial CTP and a rest CCTA. The first 150 subjects will undergo static CTP scan, while the following 150 patients will undergo dynamic CTP scan. Measurement of invasive FFR will be performed during ICA when clinically indicated., Results: The primary study end points will be: 1) assessment of the diagnostic performance (diagnostic rate, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy) of CCTA, CTP, combined CCTA-CTP and concordant CCTA-CTP vs. ICA as standard of reference in a territory-based and patient-based analysis; 2) assessment of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy of CCTA, CTP, combined CCTA-CTP and concordant CCTA-CTP vs. invasive FFR as standard of reference in a territory-based analysis., Conclusions: The ADVANTAGE study aims to provide an answer to the intriguing question whether the combined anatomical and functional assessment with CCTA plus CTP may have higher diagnostic performance as compared to CCTA alone in identifying stented patients with significant ISR or CAD progression., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.)