ORLANDO -- A rapid CT scan of the heart may provide doctors with a more efficient way to diagnose blocked arteries in people complaining of chest pain, doctors here reported Wednesday.
A study of 701 patients found that the scans, called CT angiography, cuts in half the time it usually takes for a doctor to detect a blockage in an artery supplying the heart. It also shaves nearly 40% off the cost of making the diagnosis.
Like the standard diagnostic techniques, the side effects are minimal, though patients do increase their exposure to medical radiation, says study author Kavitha Chinnaiyan of William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich.
"It's equally safe, it's faster and it's cheaper," she told an American Heart Association scientific meeting.
About 6 million people a year visit emergency rooms with chest pain, 60% of whom are told that their chest pain isn't serious and sent home. But 4% to 13% of them go on to suffer "missed" heart attacks, Chinnaiyan says, which can be fatal from 10% to 25% of the time.
Doctors routinely diagnose these patients using electrocardiograms and treadmill or resting stress tests coupled with nuclear imaging -- flooding the arteries with a mildly radioactive dye to reveal artery blockages. These tests take time and sometimes fail to provide a definitive diagnosis, Chinnaiyan says.
The researchers decided to try CT angiography, a method that produces multiple X-rays of the coronary arteries for quicker diagnoses. Negative CT scans allow doctors to rule out blockages, she says.
Elliott Antman of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston says the method has a drawback. "Many patients with chest pain appear frequently and repeatedly" in hospital emergency rooms, he says, which might result in dangerous exposures to radiation if they receive multiple CT angiograms.
Chinnaiyan agreed, noting that once patients know their arteries are clear, no more CT angiograms are needed. She also advised against using the test for women of childbearing age.
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