Dr. Molina
is Associate Professor of Radiology in the Department of
Radiology at the University of North Carolina School of
Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC. He is also a member of the editorial
board of this journal.
In recent years, spiral CT of the pulmonary circulation has
become an important and increasingly utilized imaging tool for the
detection of pulmonary embolism. In this issue of Applied
Radiology, Farag and Costello review the current role of spiral CT
scanning in the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism and address where
this technique stands in comparison with more conventional methods
of diagnosis, such as ventilation-perfusion scintigraphy and
pulmonary angiography.
Although the research base for the use of spiral CT in the
diagnosis of pulmonary embolism is relatively small and still
evolving, it appears likely that spiral CT will continue to play an
increasingly important role in the evaluation of patients suspected
of having pulmonary thromboembolic disease. This is particularly
true in light of continued technical advances such as multidetector
CT systems, which can provide thinner (1.0 to 1.25 mm) CT sections
while decreasing scan times by as much as 50%. It is hoped that the
markedly improved study quality of multidetector CT scanners,
coupled with improved software for better cine viewing and
multiplanar image reconstruction, will result in even further
improvements in the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism.