The executive board of the Society for Atherosclerosis Imaging has issued a statement challenging conclusions reached by a joint American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association panel on the use of electron beam tomography for the diagnosis and prognosis of coronary heart disease, according to EBT developer Imatron. The board termed the conclusions as an "often-biased, selective review that neither represented a consensus nor an opinion of experts on EBT," according to the Imatron release.
In particular, the SAI board believes that the ACC/AHA panel did not accurately describe the benefit of detecting subclinical coronary plaque disease by scanning at-risk individuals. The SAI members believe that a study of all published studies on EBT reveals that EBT calcium scores in asymptomatic patients provide an index of future cardiac risk ranging from two to 10 times greater than that afforded by conventional (Framingham) risk analysis, according to Imatron of South San Francisco, CA.
The SAI members also took issue with the panel’s focus on abnormal EBT results as an indicator of a false-positive test for blocked arteries. The researchers believe that EBT results are 100% specific for the presence of coronary atherosclerotic plaque, and that there are no false positives for determining the existence and severity of early coronary heart disease.
In addition, the board disagreed with the ACC/AHA panel’s suggestion that EBT can result in additional expensive and unnecessary testing to rule out a diagnosis of CAD. SAI believes this statement is contrary to published data finding EBT to be a cost-effective alternative to conventional stress testing in many clinical applications, according to Imatron. The SAI board did agree, however, with the ACC/AHA panel on the important role for appropriate patient referrals for EBT.
By AuntMinnie.com staff writers
July 5, 2000
Related Reading
EBCT outperforms stress testing in detecting coronary artery disease, July 3, 2000
German, Japanese researchers praise Imatron coronary artery scanner, May 5, 2000.
Research points to role for EBT in heart imaging, February 3, 2000.
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