CMR versus SPECT for diagnosis of coronary heart disease - Authors' reply

摘要

We agree with Stuart Watkins and colleagues that quantitative coronary angiography is an imperfect reference standard for determining the haemodynamic significance of coronary artery lesions, and we discussed this in the study limitations. CE-MARC used this reference because the study was pragmatic and designed to reflect real-world clinical practice and determine the diagnostic performance of both cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) and single-photon-emission CT (SPECT) in an unbiased population. Future studies, including MR-INFORM and CE-MARC-2, will expand the evidence base for CMR compared with fractional flow reserve and importantly they are multicentre and multivendor.