Reading the Coronary Calcium Scoring Exam

  • Step 1: Right click the thick grey bar near the exam on the right hand side of the screen on pacs

  • Hover over Philips application

  • Go to cardiac calcium scoring

  • When you open the application you will see something like this image below, just click open, do not check or uncheck anything.

  • Then when the application opens you will see something like these images below

  • You should check the vessel that you are going to label and then click a seeding method below, one click seed is usually easiest

  • Now go to your CT and look at the vessel

    • You are looking for pink dots in the vessel - these are calcs labeled by the computer - click on them while you have the correct vessel selected

      • IE do not click a right coronary calc while you have the LAD selected

    • If you see a calc (bright white dot) that is not pink and in the vessel distribution (not in the heart/myocardium, not a calcified node, etc) then you should add it by clicking on it with the seeding as well

  • Once you have done this for all the coronary vessels you will see an auto-populated Agatston score listed in the chart below

    • This is the values you will report in the CT template

  • Be sure to note any variant anatomy that may be present

  • Be sure to look at lungs, chest wall , and all other stuff in the CT that is not just the heart/coronaries

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