Lower Extremity Arterial Disease: Multidetector CT Angiography Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis assessed how well CT angiography detects narrowing in the leg arteries, compared against the invasive gold standard of digital subtraction angiography.

Pooling the available studies, multidetector CT angiography achieved a pooled sensitivity of 92 percent and specificity of 93 percent for detecting significant (≥50 percent) stenosis — strong diagnostic performance that supports CT as an accurate, less invasive alternative for evaluating peripheral arterial disease.

The finding is solid but specific to the peripheral (leg) circulation rather than the coronaries that are this library’s central concern. Peripheral arterial disease is a marker of systemic atherosclerosis, so accurate non-invasive imaging of it has value, but the relevance here is adjacent.

We rate the evidence strong for its diagnostic question, with modest clinical significance to coronary prevention. It is a competent meta-analysis confirming CT angiography’s accuracy for leg arteries, bounded by the modest number of pooled patients.