The Prevalance of Myocardial Bridging and Coronary Artery Anomalies with ECG-Gated 64-Row MDCT Coronary Angiography

Introduction: An anomalous origin and course of the coronary arteries can be benign or life threatening. Recently, because of new advances in computed tomography technology, radiologists have begun to interpret the diseases of coronary arteries. Our purpose was to demonstrate some remarkable anomalies of the coronary arteries. "nMaterials and Methods: 534 consequent patients referred to Imam Khomeini Hospital of Tabriz university of medical sciences for MDCT coronary angiography were included in this study. The patients were 14-84 years old (mean±SD, 54±116 years). 334 patients (64.41%) were men, and 190 (35.58%) were women. All the examinations were evaluated by both a radiologist and a cardiologist. "nResults: The incidence of anomalous anatomical origin and course of the coronaries found in our study group was 8.43% (n = 45). The anomalies found in our study were ectopic origin of the RCA from the left coronary cusp (n = 2, 0.37%), absence of the left main coronary artery (n = 1, 0.18%), ectopic origin of the left main coronary artery from the right sinus of Valsalva (n = 3, 0.54%), ectopic origin of LAD from RCA (n = 2, 0.36%), ectopic origin of the left circumflex artery from the right sinus of Valsalva (n = 3, 0.54%), AV fistula (n=2 0.36%) and myocardial bridging (n = 32, 5.99%). "nConclusion: An anomalous origin of the coronary anatomy must be present in the interpretations because of its importance for patients, cardiologists and surgeons. We suggest that MDCT could be a non-invasive alternative imaging technique to conventional coronary angiography for screening the anomalous vessels of coronary arteries because of its excellent spatial resolution, which is very important for detecting the relationship of anomalous vessels with great arteries and cardiac structures.