Quantitative Coronary Angiography in the Interventional Cardiology

Abstract

Coronary angiography through selective injection of radiopaque contrast agent into the coronary arteries is currently the gold standard for evaluating coronary artery disease (CAD). Subjective visual estimation of lesion severity has been shown to be inadequate due to high degrees of intraobserver and interobserver variability (Topol & Nissen, 1995). Since the late 1980s methods and algorithms for quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) have been developed in order to objectively quantify the extent of CAD (Serruys et al., 1984). Furthermore, validation of specific QCA measurements associated with clinical outcomes has led to their incorporation into various scoring systems and trials endpoint.