“We need to commit to changing the supply chain so that a single event in a faraway country does not put us in this predicament again," experts wrote in a new special report shared by Radiology.

The COVID lockdowns at the Shanghai plant began on March 31, and although the plant there has since resumed operations, they are not yet at 100% capacity.

CT-FFR, which recently got a boost from the 2021 AHA/ACC chest pain guidelines, could play a key role for clinicians hoping to screen TAVR patients for coronary heart disease. 

Leslee Shaw, PhD, director of The Blavatnik Family Women’s Health Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, explains how cardiac computed tomography (CT) can be used to assess coronary plaques.

"This awareness is important to avoid oversight of symptoms like dyspnea and vague chest discomfort, which can easily be interpreted as symptoms caused by the known disease COPD,” experts involved in the study said.

“We believe this case is potentially groundbreaking," one interventional cardiologist said. 

Siemens Healthineers showed examples at ACC 2022 of cardiac computed tomography (CT) from its new Naeotom Alpha photon-counting CT scanner cleared by the FDA in 2021.

Although current guidelines recommend radiologists evaluate CAC on all non-gated, non-contrast chest CT scans, the authors of the study note that these guidelines are not consistently followed.