Coronary CTA triages ER chest pain patients safely, inexpensively

(DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING) -- Cardiac CTA has matched the clinical safety of a standard emergency room protocol for triaging chest pain patients with suspected myocardial infarction while cutting costs by more than a third in a multicenter randomized clinical trial involving more than 700 patients.

Dr. Kavitha Chinnaiyan, a cardiologist at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, MI, described the results of the 16-center Coronary Computed Tomography Angiography for Systematic Triage of Acute Chest Pain Patients to Treatment (CT-STAT) trial Nov. 25 at the 2009 American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, FL.

The trial examined the clinical and cost experiences of low-risk chest pain patients who received either a standard ER protocol including rest-stress myocardial perfusion or an alternative workup featuring coronary CTA.