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OBJECTIVES Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is characterized by diastolic dysfunction, which is difficult to assess by noninvasive methods. We hypothesized that measurement of simultaneous left ventricular (LV) and left atrial (LA) volume changes by cardiac computed tomography would be useful in the assessment of diastolic function in HCM. METHODS We studied 21 patients with HCM and 21 age-matched controls. The LA and LV volumes were calculated and early and late diastolic volume changes derived. RESULTS The HCM patients had significantly larger LA volumes and reduced LA total emptying fraction (30 ± 7% vs 42 ± 6%; P < 0.0001). Conduit volume was increased (30 ± 6 vs 22 ± 4 mL/m; P < 0.0001) and contributed a significantly higher proportion of total LV diastolic filling, suggesting that passive filling of the LV compensates for LA dysfunction, but at the expense of increased pulmonary filling pressure. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that simultaneous depiction of computed tomography-derived LV and LA volume changes can characterize diastolic dysfunction in HCM.

Coronary artery dissection (CD) is a rare cause of acute myocardial ischemia. It is often diagnosed by invasive coronary angiography, which is the principal diagnostic tool and gold standard in the diagnosis and triage of patients with CD. More recently, electrocardiogram-gated multidetector computerized tomography has emerged as a complementary imaging tool primarily for follow-up purposes. To our knowledge, this is the first published report of the primary diagnosis and dynamic cine interrogation of a left main CD using retrospective electrocardiogram-gated multidetector computerized tomography, which was not disclosed on invasive coronary angiography.

Evaluating ECG-gated cardiac MDCT detection of systolic anterior motion of the mitral valve, in comparison to trans-thoracic echocardiography as a gold standard.Study group included 83 consecutive patients (57 men; average age 56.1 years) evaluated with both retrospective ECG-gated cardiac MDCT and trans-thoracic echocardiography within an interval of 30 days. ECG-gated cardiac MDCT imaging was performed with retrospective ECG- gating using 64-slice and 128-slice CT scanners with an inherent temporal resolution range of 75-165 ms. MDCT's and trans- thoracic echocardiograms were retrospectively and independently evaluated by experienced radiologist and cardiologist respectively, for presence of systolic anterior motion of the mitral valve.7 patients (8.4%) were found to have systolic anterior motion by trans-thoracic echocardiography, from which 6 were found to have systolic anterior motion by ECG-gated cardiac MDCT. Of the 76 patients without systolic anterior motion on trans-thoracic echocardiography, all were correctly identified using ECG-gated cardiac MDCT. The sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values and accuracy of ECG-gated cardiac MDCT in identifying systolic anterior motion of the mitral valve were 85.7% (6/7), 100% (76/76), 100% (6/6), 98.7% (76/77) and 98.8% (82/83), respectively.ECG-gated cardiac MDCT is comparable to trans-thoracic echocardiography in detecting systolic anterior motion of the mitral valve.