Diagnosing Coronary Heart Disease: A New Gold Standard?
Heart disease such as suffered by President Bill Clinton earlier this year, should now be diagnosed more accurately and safely with the ultra-high CT speed scanner.
(PRWEB) November 18, 2004 -- It is now known, that President Bill Clinton
underwent several cardiac stress tests in efforts to determine the cause of his
chest pain. After his last one, in September, 2004, he declared: “I aced it”.
The next morning, we learned that his coronary arteries were 90% occluded. This
scenario is not limited to the former President. In fact, it is quite
common.
Even though President Clinton’s quadruple bypass surgery was
successful and the prognosis for his recovery good, we should all be questioning
the wisdom of cardiac stress tests as the first line of detection for coronary
artery disease (“CAD”), a disorder that will affect 49% of American men, and 32%
of American women at some point in their lifetimes, according to the American
Heart Association.
Stress tests have been favored as a non-invasive
method of testing for CAD. However, according to research performed by Dr.
Daniel Berman, Director of Cardiac Imaging at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, there
is greater than a 50% chance of missing coronary artery disease (CAD) in
high-risk patients who have undergone “normal” stress tests. His studies show
that even severe CAD, such as that which occurred with President Clinton, can be
missed by the stress test.
With the advent of non-invasive, ultra-high
speed CT scanners, anyone can now be screened for the presence of calcium within
the walls of the coronary arteries. The process takes minutes in the fully
clothed patient, and is safer than a chest X-ray. The results indicate the
degree of risk from suffering a heart attack if the condition goes untreated.
Treatment or, prevention of progression, is now available for the full spectrum
of this condition.
According to many scientists, the Electron Beam
Tomogram (EBT), manufactured by General Electric Healthcare, is the current
“gold standard” for CAD screening. “An EBT can scan the coronary arteries, and
determine the presence of atherosclerosis far more accurately than the standard
cardiac stress test,” said Douglas Boyd, PhD., the device’s inventor.
If
calcium is detected in a non-invasive EBT scan, or if the patient is suffering
from cardiac symptoms, the patient may be advised to undergo a coronary
angiogram with the EBT which requires only an injection of dye into a vein in
the arm. According to Dr. Boyd: “The EBT angiogram provides a 4-Dimensional (the
4th dimension representing “time”) roadmap of the interior of the coronary
arteries, often finding obstructive disease that is missed by stress testing”.
Dr. Boyd also points out that the EBT uses significantly less radiation than
other forms of ultra-high speed scanning.
In former President Clinton’s
case, even though he can afford the best medical care, his doctors relied on the
standard stress test. In my opinion, a non-invasive, ultra-high speed
alternative would have placed him at less risk, and possibly resulted in earlier
recognition of his need for surgical treatment. In an era in which technology
enables doctors to see 4-Dimensional images of the coronary arteries, doctors
should change their mode of diagnosis to include the more accurate ultra-high CT
scans. The public should be encouraged to include preventative scanning to
detect potential disorders that can be prevented, reversed or retarded before
the onset of costly complications.
Myles L. Saunders, MD is the Chairman
& CEO of HealthAddress, Inc., a company involved in the interpretation of
digital medical images including those taken by the EBT.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/11/prweb179951.htm