Abstract
Sixty-one patients at this hospital have been undergoing outpatient hemodialysis for <2 years. Thirty-two of the 61 patients (age : 59.2±12.7 years ; dialysis period : 12.6±7.3 months) underwent 320-row computed tomography (CT) imaging to evaluate coronary stenosis. We excluded 6 patients >80 years of age, 10 who underwent conventional coronary angiography (CAG), and 13 who did not consent to participation in this study. Among the 32 patients, CT imaging demonstrated that 6 had coronary stenosis, and 20 did not have coronary stenosis. The remaining 6 patients were indeterminate (5, advanced calcification ; 1, poor image quality). The average age of patients with coronary stenosis (67.3±9.5 years) and indeterminate cases (68.3±9.7 years) was significantly higher (p<0.05 and p<0.01, respectively) than that of those without coronary stenosis (54.0±11.8 years). The calcification score of indeterminate cases (1088±907) was significantly higher (p<0.05 and p<0.01, respectively) than that of patients with (351±356) or without (100±217) coronary stenosis. Four of the 6 coronary stenosis patients also had diabetes (67%), which was higher than the rate of 5/20 patients without coronary stenosis (25%), but the difference was not significant. Five of 6 patients with CT-detected coronary stenosis who underwent CAG had significant stenosis requiring treatment. One patient underwent coronary artery bypass surgery, 2 percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and the other 2 were administered drugs. One of 5/6 patients who were indeterminate on CT was found to have significant coronary artery stenosis, and PCI was performed. CT coronary artery screening detected coronary artery disease requiring treatment in 6/32 (19%) asymptomatic hemodialysis patients, on whom CAG was performed. Since 320-row CT coronary artery screening can detect untreated and latent coronary stenosis, it is useful to screen patients at the initiation of maintenance hemodialysis.