Table Of ContentHeart International 2013; volume 8:e1
Potential role of coronary computed tomography-angiography for guiding
perioperative cardiac management for non-cardiac surgery
Amit K. Pahwa,1 Armin Arbab-Zadeh,2 Daniel J. Brotman,1 Leonard S. Feldman1
1Hospitalist Program, Department of Medicine; 2Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine,
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA
increasing patient morbidity, mortality, and studies with 8119 patients to determine the
Abstract
length of stay.1 According to the American operating characteristics (sensitivity and
College of Cardiology Foundation/American specificity) of a variety of non-invasive stress
Perioperative cardiac events can be a major Heart Association (ACCF/AHA) 2007 tests performed before surgery. When evalu-
consequence of surgery. The American College Guidelines on Perioperative Cardiovascular ating for the likelihood of perioperative car-
of Cardiology Foundation/American Heart Evaluation, non-invasive cardiac stress test- diac death and non-fatal myocardial infarc-
Association has set out guidelines to aid ing should be considered for patients under- tion in vascular surgery patients, dobutamine
physicians in identifying patients at the high- going moderate or high-risk surgery with stress echocardiography had the lowest
est risk for these events. The guidelines do poor functional capacity and at least one clin- (most favorable) negative likelihood ratio
recommend for some patients to undergo non- ical risk factor. The intent of the testing is to (LR), 0.21, while radionuclide ventriculogra-
invasive cardiac stress testing for further risk further refine risk assessment for periopera- phy had the highest positive LR, 5.56.5
stratification, but their sensitivity and speci- tive cardiac events and to determine the need Beattie et al. in their meta-analysis of 68
ficity for predicting cardiac events is not opti- for interventions prior to surgery aimed at studies of 10,049 patients compared thallium
mal. With more data emerging of the superior reducing such a risk. The presence of imaging to stress echocardiography and
performance of computed coronary tomogra- obstructive coronary artery disease increases determined that stress echocardiography had
phy angiography (CCTA) compared to non- the risk of perioperative cardiac events. a better positive LR (4.09 vs.1.83) and nega-
invasive stress testing, CCTA could be more Although the obstructive lesion itself is often tive LR (0.23 vs.0.44) for predicting a postop-
useful in risk stratification for these patients. not the cause of the cardiac event, the lesion erative cardiac event.6Based on these num-
is a marker for advanced coronary atheroscle- bers, a patient with a moderate perioperative
rotic plaque burden and, among them, unsta- cardiac event risk of 6% would have a post-
ble plaques that are thought to lead to many test probability of 21% with a positive preop-
Introduction
of these events.2 In addition to plaque type, erative stress echocardiography study and a
other factors including alterations in coro- risk of 1% with a negative study.
Major perioperative cardiac events occur in nary blood flow, changes in hemostasis, neu- More recently, computed coronary tomogra-
approximately 1% of non-cardiac surgeries, rohormonal dysregulation, or other environ- phy angiography (CCTA) has emerged as a
mental stressors are typically required to more sensitive test to non-invasively evalu-
incite an acute coronary event.3Surgery pro- ate cardiac risk through imaging of the coro-
duces inflammation, catecholamine release, nary arteries. Although there has only been
and a hypercoagulable state which can pre- limited experience with this modality in the
Correspondence: Amit K. Pahwa, Nelson 219, 600
cipitate plaque rupture, thrombosis, and perioperative setting, CCTA is able to accu-
North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
myocardial infarction (MI).1 Dawood et al. rately detect and exclude significant coronary
E-mail: [email protected]
showed, through autopsy review, that the artery disease (CAD) in many other clinical
Key words: computed coronary tomography pathophysiology of a fatal perioperative settings. A systematic review of 41 studies
angiography, myocardial perfusion imaging, car- myocardial infarction is very similar to non- and 2500 patients with stable chest pain com-
diac event. operative events. They compared the paring CCTA to the gold standard diagnostic
histopathology of myocardial infarction in test, coronary angiography, found CCTA to
Conflict of interests: the authors declare no patients who underwent surgery as well as have a sensitivity of 99% and specificity of
potential conflicts of interests. those who did not. Plaque hemorrhage/rup- 89% for detecting flow-limiting CADdefined
ture occurred in 55% of the perioperative as greater than 50% stenosis by quantitative
Received for publication: 1 September 2012. group versus 40% of the non-operative analysis. This translates to a positive likeli-
Accepted for publication: 28 November 2012. patients (P=0.32), while thrombus without hood ratio of 9 and negative likelihood ratio
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons plaque disruption was noted in 29% versus of 0.01.7
Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 License (CC BY- 36% (P=0.59) of the perioperative versus
NC 3.0). non-operative patients, respectively.4
A review of the literature reveals only fair
©Copyright A.K. Pahwa et al., 2013 Outcome: obstructive disease
sensitivity and specificity of current non-
Licensee PAGEPress, Italy
invasive cardiac stress modalities to predict
Heart International 2013; 8:e1
doi:10.4081/hi.2013.e1 cardiac events in perioperative patients. In a recent review, pooled results from 7 stud-
Kertai et al.performed a meta-analysis of 58 ies and 483 patients showed a discrepancy
[Heart International 2013; 8:e1] [page 1]
Review
between SPECT and CCTA for detecting more to five years after testing.16Such negative pre- (while acknowledging uncertainty given the
than 50% coronary artery stenosis. Using inva- dictive value is unmatched by other non-inva- current body of evidence) using CCTA for pre-
sive coronary angiography as the reference sive tests. On the other hand, the specificity of operative evaluation on patients with less
standard, SPECT was 66% sensitive and 69% only 41% produces a low positive LR (1.70) than 4 METS of functional capacity and at
specific compared to the 96% sensitivity and which means that a positive CCTA, using simply least one clinical risk factor undergoing inter-
88% specificity of CCTA.8 the presence of obstructive coronary artery dis- mediate risk or vascular surgery. Given the
A few studies have explored the use of CCTA in ease, is a poor predictor of an impending major CCTA data discussed above, it may be reason-
patients undergoing non-coronary cardiac sur- cardiac event.15 To further investigate the nega- able to substitute CCTA for the other stress
gery.9-13 In the largest cohort of 70 patients tive predictive value of CCTA in low- to interme- testing modalities, such as MPI. A recent
preparing for valvular surgery, CCTA was 100% diate-risk patients (thrombolysis in myocardial study by Goldstein et al.looked at efficiency,
sensitive and 92% specific for detecting more infarction, TIMI 0-2) presenting to the ED with cost, and safety of CCTA versus MPI in
than 50% stenosis in the coronary arteries when chest pain, Litt et al.randomized patients to a patients with no coronary artery disease pre-
compared to invasive coronary angiography.9 CCTA or usual carepathway. Of those studied in senting to the emergency department with
the CCTA pathway, 640 had a negative CCTA acute chest pain and TIMI risk score below 4.
(less than 50% stenosis), and none of them died There was no significant difference in num-
or had an MI within 30 days after presentation.17 ber of major adverse cardiac events between
Outcome: cardiac events In addition, Hoffman et al. performed a multi- the two groups. The costs of both tests are
center study randomizing 1000 patients present- very similar, while the exposure to radiation
ing to the ED with chest pain with any TIMI is significantly lower with CCTA.20
The prognostic value of CCTA has been well
score to either standard ED evaluation or CCTA
studied in emergency department (ED) litera-
as first evaluation. Patients were followed for 28
ture. Gallagher et al. enrolled 85 low-risk
days after discharge from the hospital. In the
patients who presented to the ED with chest Conclusions
usual carepathway, there were 6 cases of acute
pain. All had negative electrocardiogram
coronary syndrome and only 2 in the CCTA
(EKG) and serum markers for myocardial
group. Of note, the CCTA was positive for clini- Based on available data, CCTA is effective at
ischemia. All patients underwent myocardial
cally significant disease in both of these excluding the presence of flow-limiting CAD
perfusion imaging (MPI) and CCTA. MPI was
patients, but they both had negative stress tests and in identifying those patients with chest
considered abnormal if it showed reversible
and were managed medically. In addition, there pain who are unlikely to have near-term coro-
perfusion defects, and CCTA was deemed
was no significant difference in number of nary events. Absence of flow-limiting lesions
abnormal if there was greater than 50% steno-
catherizations, percutaneous intervention (PCI) appears to be a surrogate marker for low coro-
sis. Patients were followed for 30 days to deter-
or coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG) nary atherosclerotic plaque burden and
mine whether the patient had an acute coro-
between each group.18 unstable coronary plaques. Given that stress
nary event such as unstable angina, non-ST
echocardiography and MPI performance is, at
elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) or
best, only fair in risk-stratifying preoperative
ST elevation myocardial infarction STEMI (by
patients, and in other settings is inferior to
record review/questionnaire or invasive Can we use computed coronary CCTA, we suggest considering CCTA as an
angiography). No events occurred in 78 tomography angiography in the appropriate, and perhaps better way to strati-
patients while a major cardiac event occurred fy perioperative patients at risk for CAD if
in 7 patients. In those who did not have an perioperative setting? testing is indeed indicated (Table 1). CCTA is
event, 70 of 78 had a negative MPI and 72 of 78 both sensitive and specific for detecting
had a negative CCTA. Of the 7 who had an The ACCF released appropriate usecriteria for angiographically apparent obstructive CAD.
event, MPI and CCTA predicted 5 and 6 of CCTA most recently in 2010. The foundation Although there are no studies on the periop-
them, respectively. These data suggest that rates CCTA as appropriate to detect CAD in erative patient, the data on CCTA in other set-
CCTA is just as good, if not better than MPI in intermediate risk (10-90% CAD risk) tings suggest it should be considered as a rea-
identifying those who will not have a major patients. This refers to patients presenting sonable and possibly superior substitute for
cardiac event.14 with non-acute ischemic symptoms despite other non-invasive modalities. A randomized
A 2011 systematic review and meta-analysis having an interpretable EKG or ability to exer- control trial comparing CCTA to other modali-
included 18 studies evaluating major cardiac cise.19 In addition, the ACCF recommends ties in the preoperative setting is warranted.
events in 9592 symptomatic patients after evalu-
ation with CCTA. Each patient had known or sus-
pected coronary artery disease. Median follow-
up time was 20 months. Major cardiac events
were defined as death, myocardial infarction, or
need for coronary revascularization. A CCTA was
considered positive if a greater than 50% steno-
sis was identified. CCTA demonstrated high sen-
sitivity (99%) and low negative LR (0.08) for a Table 1. Likelihood ratios for various risk-stratification modalities.
major cardiac event. Patients with a negative
Preoperative cardiac event +LR -LR
test had a much lower post-test probability of
Dobutamine stress echocardiogram 2.83 0.21
having an event.15 Importantly, most of these
Radionuclide ventriculography 5.56 0.55
studies included total mortality, but not cardiac
mortality, as end points. If only cardiac mortality Total mortality +LR -LR
or myocardial infarction are considered, the CCTA 1.7 0.08
event rate after a normal CCTA was zero even up LR, likelihood ratio; CCTA, computed coronary tomography angiography.
[page 2] [Heart International 2013; 8:e1]
Review
as an alternative to invasive coronary patients. Ann Emerg Med 2007;49:125-36.
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[Heart International 2013; 8:e1] [page 3]
