Spectral and Ultra High Resolution CT Systems for Non-Invasive Detection of Myocardial Ischemia: Stress CT Perfusion VS. FFR-CT (SURE-CT)

April 15, 2026 updated by: Anna Palmisano, IRCCS San Raffaele
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Coronary Computed Tomography angiography (CCTA) gained a pivotal clinical role for excellent sensitivity in rule-out CAD, but has limited specificity for a tendency to overestimate stenoses and for the lack of information about their hemodynamic impact. Fractional Flow Reserve derived from CT (FFR-CT) and stress CT perfusion (CTP) have been recently proposed to complement CCTA in the non-invasive assessment of myocardial ischemia, increasing the specificity and avoiding unnecessary catheterization. However, on energy-integrating (EID)-CT, FFR-CT has suboptimal performance, while CTP is affected by high radiation exposure. Both these approaches may benefit by the introduction of the new Photon Counting Detector (PCD)-CT technology, but data completely lacks. Aim of the study is to assess the performance of PCD-CT in the identification of significant CAD combining CCTA with FFR-CT and spectral CTP.

Study Overview

Status

Not yet recruiting

Conditions

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Estimated)

142

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • Italy
      • Milan, Italy
        • IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele
    • RM
      • Roma, RM, Italy, 00189
        • Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Sant'Andrea
        • Contact:
          • Damiano Caruso, Medicine and Surgery

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

142 patients (age>18 years old) referred to our hospitals for elective CCTA for ruling out CAD and CCTA evidence of moderate stenosis (50-69%) requiring functional assessment according to ESC guidelines (1) because is known that not all anatomical stenosis in the range of moderate (50-69%) are haemodynamically significant (2) or induce myocardial ischaemia (3).

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Patient referred to our hospitals for elective CCTA for ruling out CAD
  • CCTA evidence of moderate stenosis (50-69%) requiring functional assessment according to ESC guidelines

Exclusion Criteria:

  • hemodynamically unstable conditions,
  • previous revascularization,
  • myocardial infarction,
  • obesity (BMI>40 kg/m2),
  • renal insufficiency (GFR<30 mL/min),
  • atrial fibrillation or other significant arrhythmias; and
  • other overt cardiovascular diseases affecting CTP performance (e.g., heart failure, severe valvular regurgitation),
  • pregnancy and breastfeeding,
  • contraindications to iodinated contrast agents or regadenoson.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Diagnostic accuracy of CCTA, CCTA plus FFR-CT, and CCTA plus spectral stress CT perfusion in the detection of hemodynamically relevant coronary stenosis
Time Frame: 36 months
CCTA-derived stenosis and plaque characterization; CT-FFR values from commercial and in-house solutions; CTP-derived iodine uptake measurement; invasive FFR as reference standard. Comparison of off-site versus on-site CT-FFR solutions determined against invasive FFR.
36 months
Evaluation of rest spectral CT perfusion for the assessment of haemodynamic significance of stenosis
Time Frame: 36 months
Coronary stenosis severity at CCTA; myocardial iodine uptake at baseline, rest, and stress CTP; diagnostic performance of iodine uptake values against invasive FFR.
36 months
Identification of geometric features from PCD-CT ultra high resolution CCTA associated to plaque-specific ischemia at invasive FFR.
Time Frame: 36 months
Blinded analysis of baseline CCTA for qualitative and quantitative plaque characteristics, with correlation to invasive FFR. Inter-rater agreement assessment between two expert readers. Deep learning-based radiomic feature extraction from plaques and vessel walls. Development of a data-driven feature selection pipeline to predict hemodynamically significant stenosis from CCTA data, using invasive FFR as reference.
36 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

IRCCS San Raffaele

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Estimated)

September 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

April 1, 2029

Study Completion (Estimated)

September 1, 2029

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 15, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 15, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

April 22, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 22, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 15, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • GR-2024-12380180

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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