CT Venography of Superior Vena Cava

Before CTV examination of superior vena cava (SVC), a careful inquiry of the patient’s medical history should be performed, and the appropriate injection site and injection rate of contrast agent should be selected based on previous CT, MR, and other examination results. Injecting contrast agent into the affected side of the limb is beneficial for displaying collateral veins in patients with SVC syndrome, but this method should be cautiously used because of edema, pain, and fatal pulmonary embolism possibly caused by detachment of the embolus. The specific scanning parameters can be determined according to the specific CT equipment at each institution, but for CTV of the SVC, thin-slice volume CT scanning should be performed to generate high-quality three-dimensional reformatted images.