CTPA vs "CTPE"

[cbrons]

Can someone explain the difference to me? I tried googling already.

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[colbgw02]

I've never heard or used "CTPE", but I'm sure it's just shorthand for a pulmonary embolism protocol chest CT, which is exactly what a CTPA is. CTPA was our term for such a study in residency, and I still use it all the time, but no one else at my current hospital does. On the other hand, I always just say PE or pulmonary embolism, while every else I work with says PTE or pulmonary thromboembolism.

Just whatever you do, don't ask for a "spiral" CT to look for emoblism.

 

[cbrons]

I've never heard or used "CTPE", but I'm sure it's just shorthand for a pulmonary embolism protocol chest CT, which is exactly what a CTPA is. CTPA was our term for such a study in residency, and I still use it all the time, but no one else at my current hospital does. On the other hand, I always just say PE or pulmonary embolism, while every else I work with says PTE or pulmonary thromboembolism.

Just whatever you do, don't ask for a "spiral" CT to look for emoblism.

Thank you, I thought that was the case. But whenever I say "CTPA" my coresidents look at me weird or try to correct me.

 

[Derv]

Just depends on the hospital I guess. My med school said PE, my residency says PA

 

[recycledpaper]

I just gave a presentation on PE today, and used CTPA without any confusion.

 

[cbrons]

So an angiogram is basically a CT w/ contrast?

 

[Cognovi]

So an angiogram is basically a CT w/ contrast?

A CT angiogram involves CT with intravenous contrast. The differences between CTA chest (for aorta), CTPA (for pulmonary arteries), and routine CT chest with contrast are protocol details such as amount of contrast, speed of contrast administration, timing of imaging acquisition (eg, triggered by peak enhancement in the region of interest), the direction of acquisition (apex to base or base to apex), the tradeoff between speed and detail (eg, slice thickness, pitch, rotation speed), and image reconstruction algorithms (eg, thin cuts, maximal intensity projection, 3D)

 

[meister]

So an angiogram is basically a CT w/ contrast?

What Cognovi said, but basically "angiogram" in general just refers to an imaging study of arteries. So a CT angiogram (CTA) is a CT scan tailored to look at arteries. This, of course, requires the use of IV contrast.

 

[Cognovi]

To further emphasize the point that "angiogram" just means study of arteries, an MR angiogram sometimes does not use contrast.