Advanced visualization software developer Ziosoft is highlighting research presented at this month's Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) conference on the use of its software to assist with transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) interventional procedures.
Medical imaging modalities are typically used to perform preprocedure planning and postprocedure assessment of patients with severe aortic stenosis undergoing TAVR. A key metric is calculation of extracellular volume fraction (ECV), for which cardiac MRI (CMR) is considered the gold standard.
However, CT angiography (CTA) can also be used for ECV assessment. In the paper presented at SCCT 2022, researchers from Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital used Ziosoft's Ziostation2 software to perform EVC-CTA assessment and compared it with ECV-CMR.
A group led by Dr. João Cavalcante found that ECV-CTA conducted in conjunction with Ziostation2 demonstrated "excellent" correlation with ECV-CMR in patients with severe aortic stenosis undergoing TAVR evaluation. The application supported the coregistration of precontrast and delayed acquisitions and created a multisegmented ECV-CT map,
This technology helped enable ECV-CT assessment making it a viable, noninvasive approach to assess myocardial fibrosis and potential prescreening of cardiac amyloidosis during preplanning TAVR or post-TAVR procedures, Cavalcante found.
![Axial images from unenhanced calcium score cardiac CT (left) and curved planar reformation images from CT angiography (right) show that higher long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with greater coronary artery calcium and more obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD). Top row: Images in a 68-year-old male patient with higher 10-year mean ambient air pollution exposure (7.9 μg/m3 for particulate matter measuring ≤2.5 μm in diameter [PM2.5] and 17.4 parts per billion [ppb] for NO2) with extensive CAD (coronary artery calcium score [CACS] >1,000 and obstructive CAD [≥70% diameter stenosis]). Bottom row: Images in a 57-year-old female patient with lower 10-year mean ambient air pollution exposure (6.3 μg/m3 for PM2.5 and 4.6 ppb for NO2) with no CAD (CACS = 0 and no obstructive stenosis).](https://img.auntminnie.com/mindful/smg/workspaces/default/uploads/2026/06/hanneman.r6SMLzkezo.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=167&q=70&w=250)
