Coronary angiogram classification of spontaneous coronary artery dissection

Abstract

Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) is under-diagnosed and the true prevalence is underestimated. Unfortunately, SCAD is frequently missed on coronary angiogram since the arterial wall is not imaged with this test. Optical coherence tomography or intravascular ultrasound should be the true gold-standard to diagnose SCAD. Given the elusive angiographic diagnosis of SCAD and the lack of familiarity with angiographic variants of SCAD, a diagnostic algorithm and angiographic classification for SCAD is proposed in this article.

Keywords: IVUS-imaging; angiography; catheterization; coronary; diagnostic; imaging; intravascular ultrasound; optical coherence tomography.