Dear Cardiac Imaging Insider,
The Holy Grail of cardiac imaging would undoubtedly be a screening exam that could pinpoint early but problematic heart disease, allowing doctors to better identify and treat patients at risk for coronary events than techniques currently in clinical practice. And some have suggested that CT coronary calcium scanning could fill that role.
This month's Insider Exclusive describes the study of a very different technology, which, if fully developed, could easily eclipse CT on the basis of cost and accessibility. But even if lower-extremity arterial compliance plethysmography isn't the answer, coronary calcium scanning may still be oversold, suggests study co-author and cardiologist Dr. David Herrington.
"We know that coronary calcium is associated with atherosclerosis, and there are a number of studies showing that it's independently predictive of risk for cardiovascular events," said Herrington.
"But the amount to which it contributes to prediction for risk is still a subject of great debate," he added, "and there's a lot of academic activity trying to figure out just how much a coronary calcium scan tells you that you don't already know from other things."
"I think the rational use of coronary calcium scanning might be to scan those people that have an intermediate level of risk, and for whom you're not certain whether they should be treated more aggressively or not," Herrington said. But, "there clearly are places where there has been a lot of unnecessary coronary calcium screening, in my opinion."
To read more about the technology Herrington sees as potentially better, click here. Please also visit the links below for other recent stories in the Cardiac Imaging Digital Community.
