FIGURE 5.

Stent calcifications. Panels A (EID-DLCT-XCD) and B (SPCCT-Sharp) show a DES of the left anterior descending (LAD), extending over the origin of the diagonal, of a 69-year-old man deployed in 2007. On maximum intensity projection (MIP) (A and A1; A1 corresponds to the white box in A) and cross-axial (A2 and A3 at the level of the origin of the diagonal and a bit further downstream, respectively) reconstructions of the EID-DLCT, some hyperdense images on the walls of the coronary images could represent either calcifications or struts since the stent structure is undistinguishable. Corresponding images on SPCCT (MIP in B and B1; B1 corresponds to the white box in B; cross-sectional in B2 and B3) nicely show the stent struts (arrows) encrusted with calcifications (arrowheads). In panels C (EID-DLCT-XCD) and D (SPCCT-Sharp), a 3.5 × 12 mm Synergy stent of the LAD, extending over the origin of the diagonal, implanted 5 months before the CT scans. The stent had been placed over a rather voluminous calcification (white arrowheads) that is deforming the stent lumen as it is visible on EID-DLCT (C, C1, and C2; C2: cross-axial image at the level of the white lines on C1) as well as on corresponding SPCCT images (D, D1, and D2). The lumen of the stent is hard to assess on EID-DLCT, whereas it is clearly reduced in caliber but patent on SPCCT. Furthermore, on the SPCCT cross-axial image (D2), the stent struts are nicely visible on 1 side (arrow), whereas on the other side, the calcification has 1 peripheral less dense component (white arrowhead) and a denser layer closer to the stent (black arrow).