Cardiac valve disease: spectrum of findings on cardiac 64-MDCT

OBJECTIVE: Recent studies have established that cardiac MDCT generates high-quality images of the cardiac valves. Images are acquired during a single breath-hold (inspiration) after the injection of iodinated contrast material (5 mL/s) followed by a saline bolus chaser. Incremental data sets are then reconstructed throughout the R-R interval, and after transfer to a workstation, specialized software combines data sets sequentially to generate cine loops of the heart throughout the cardiac cycle. The purpose of this article is to describe the cardiac MDCT techniques allowing optimal cardiac valve depiction and to illustrate the MDCT appearances of the most important valve diseases. CONCLUSION: Cardiac MDCT provides an excellent imaging method for illustrating cardiac valve disease. Radiologists should be aware of the various appearances of the common and most important cardiac valve diseases on cardiac MDCT.