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Health News Feature
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CT scan can detect heart problems in 'healthy' people (HealthDay News) – Sometimes, it takes more than a standardized test to determine a person's health. That certainly has proved to be the case with the use of electron beam computed tomography (CT or EBCT) to detect potential heart problems in people who show no symptoms of cardiac irregularity or disease. A signature 2003 study using EBCT scanning showed that half of deaths caused by heart disease occurred in people with no symptoms, according to a statement by the team that did the test. "And a third of people with heart disease don't have any of the traditional risk factors -- diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, family history or peripheral vascular disease. Those individuals would go undetected by traditional screening methods," the research team concluded Electron beam computed tomography detects a different source of trouble -- calcium deposits in artery walls that can eventually be blocked, causing a heart attack or stroke. It is a fast form of X-ray imaging technology that can be done in a few minutes. And the amount of those calcium deposits did predict trouble, the researchers found. More than 5,600 men and women were divided into four groups, depending on the extent of calcium deposits found by an EBCT scan. Over the next three and a half years, men in the highest quarter of calcium scores were 2.3 times more likely to die or have a heart attack and 10.1 times more likely to have bypass surgery or artery-clearing angioplasty than those in the lowest quarter, the report says. There were no comparable figures on deaths and heart attacks for women, because few of them occurred. However, the incidence of bypass surgery or angioplasty was 3.6 times higher for those in the highest quarter compared to those in the lowest. "This is an important advance in the study of this technology," said Dr. Patrick G. O'Malley, an EBCT expert and chief of the division of general and internal medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington , D.C. The research helps resolve a running debate on EBCT's effectiveness. "It is an open question whether it can predict over and above the conventional risk factors," O'Malley says. O'Malley led a recently published study showing that EBCT readings must be followed up by doctors to make sure persons with high scores pay careful attention to the conventional risk factors to prevent heart attack and stroke An EBCT is not for everyone, says Dr. William Weintraub, director of the Christiana Center for Outcomes Research in Wilmington , Del. , and author of an accompanying editorial of the findings published in the journal Circulation . . "It is most appropriate for people at an intermediate level of risk," Weintraub said. Physicians must use judgment in selecting those individuals because there is "a tremendous range within the category of medium-risk individuals," he added. On the Web You can learn about electron beam tomography and other imaging techniques from the American Heart Association. SOURCES:
Patrick G. O'Malley, M.D., M.P.H., chief, division of general and internal medicine, Walter Reed Army Medical Center , Washington , D.C.; William Weintraub, M.D., J ohn H. Ammon Chair of Cardiology and director of the Christiana Center for Outcomes Research, Wilmington, Del; May 13, 2003, Circulation
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