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NICE draft guidance gives green light for new generation cardiac CT scanners
Draft guidance from NICE´s diagnostics assessment programme on four new generation cardiac computed tomography (CT) scanners is issued for public consultation.
The provisional recommendations support the use of Somatom Definition Flash CT scanner (Siemens AG Healthcare), Aquilion ONE (Toshiba Medical Systems), Brilliance iCT (Philips Healthcare) and Discovery CT750 (GE Healthcare) in the NHS in England for people with suspected or known coronary artery disease in whom imaging is difficult with earlier generation CT scanners.
The recent NICE clinical guideline on chest pain of recent onseti recommends CT coronary angiography and invasive coronary angiography to assess the state of arteries and identify significant narrowing in people with an estimated probability of coronary artery disease of 10-29% and a calcium score of 400 or less People with a calcium score above 400 are considered difficult to image using earlier generation CT technologies. Other reasons that make CT imaging difficult are obesity, arrhythmias (irregular heart beat), high heart rates (above 70 beats per minute) or previous coronary stents or bypass grafts.
 scanners is issued for public consultation. &picture=http://www.networks.nhs.uk/bb_pcc_n_motif_aw_200.png){kind=link}