A NEW IMAGING TECHNIQUE may provide a less invasive alternative to coronary angiography. The technique, synchrotron radiation-based transvenous angiography, requires only an iodinated contrast agent administered intravenously and in lower concentrations than required for cardiac catheterization. It utilizes lower radiation doses and takes less time to perform than coronary angiography.
Edward Rubenstein, MD, who described the procedure at the recent annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco, Calif, said that because the procedural risk is much lower than that of standard coronary angiography, the technique has potential utility in long-term studies of atherogenesis and may be suitable for clinical use as well.
Rubenstein, a professor of Medicine at Stanford (Calif) University Medical Center, has been developing the technique with a team of cardiologists and physicists at Stanford, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and the National Synchrotron Light Source, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Long Island, NY. The