About the Scan - Heart and Vascular CT Angiography

SMIL offers heart and vascular computed tomography angiography (CTA or CCTA), a non-invasive diagnostic image that produces 3-D images of your heart and associated blood vessels. Heart and vascular CT angiography allow doctors to see inside your heart, arteries and veins

During a heart and vascular CTA scan, contrast material is injected into a small vein in your arm and tracked by the cardiac CT scan as the contrast moves with the blood flow into the heart. The scanner collects information that is used to create hundreds of pictures of your heart. A computer allows the doctor to see your heart in multiple views.

Heart and vascular CT angiography is used for:

• Identifying calcium (plaque) buildup in blood vessels or coronary arteries.
• Spotting possible narrowing of the blood vessels in and around the heart.
• Identifying aneurysms in major blood vessels or dissections in the aorta. Aneurysms are weakened areas of the blood-vessel walls that bulge out. Dissections are layers of artery wall that peel away from each other, weakening the artery.
• Diagnosing coronary-artery disease and heart disease at an early stage.

Learn how to prepare for heart angiography and vascular CT angiography in the preparations for heart and vascular CT angiography section.

Find out if heart angiography or vascular CT angiography are right for you in the benefits and risks of heart and vascular CT angiography section.

For a downloadable/printable PDF about this exam with preparation instructions click here.