Cardiac

Cardiac CT was introduced at the University Hospital, North Norway (UNN) in 2012, as a collaboration between the Departments of Radiology and Cardiology. The initiative was made possible by a donation from investor Trond Mohn, allowing for procurement of a Dual Source CT 128x2 MSCT machine. Cardiac CT was primarily established to examine patients with suspected coronary disease, but over the years, the method has been increasingly used for other cardiovascular issues, such as for example electrophysiological evaluation and structural cardiac disease. 

Cardiac CT Database: Since 2016, all coronary CT-examinations at UNN have been consecutively registrered in a national database (NORIC (Norwegian registry for invasive cardiology), linked to the National Registry for cardiac- and vascular diseases. (https://www.kvalitetsregistre.no/registers/norsk-register-invasiv-kardiologi-noric).

The database holds information on the patients weight, height, BP, pulse as well as smoking habits in addition to technical CT issues (radiation doses, use of intravenous contrast) and CT findings (coronary pathology), amongst others. The data may be linked to conventional invasive imaging and to DIPS, and includes data on >2300 patients (2016 onwards) as of today. In addition, a local database (2013-2015) holds information on an additional 1200 examinations. 

International collaboration: The Cardiac CT group is chaired by consultant radiologist Signe Forsdahl, MD PhD, UNN, and is part of the Section for Cardio-Thoracic Radiology at UNN. Following a visiting scholarship at the Stanford University Hospital, California (US) in 2014/2015, there has been ongoing collaborative work between the two institutions, both clinically and scientifically.