Congenital coronary anomalies are relatively common, occurring at a rate of approximately 0.2 to 1.3% based on adult angiographic series.
1 Most anomalies are not of clinical significance. Nevertheless, some anomalies are related to angina, dyspnoea, syncope, acute myocardial infarction, even to sudden death.
1-3 With the rapid improvement of the multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) technique, it can now clearly visualise the anatomy of the coronary arteries, and give an even better description of the smaller branches of coronary arteries, such as the sinus node artery.
1-5,6-8 Dual-source computed tomography (DSCT), with two arrays consisting of an X-ray tube and detectors arranged at a 90° angle to each other and with a gantry rotation time of 330 ms, allows a temporal resolution of 83 ms at the centre of gantry rotation when half-scan image reconstruction algorithms are used.
9,10 DSCT’s high temporal resolution and the spatial resolution of 0.4 mm, compared with 64-slice CT (165 ms of temporal resolution), improve the diagnostic accuracy of CT coronary angiography (CTCA) and image quality of CTCA in patients with atrial fibrillation and fulfil the requirements for implementing cardiac CT in routine clinical algorithms.
11 We report the incidence of congenital coronary anomalies in a group of 1881 patients who underwent DSCT studies between December 2006 and February 2008, and we discuss the clinical significance of detecting them. …
