What is high speed, multi-detector, spiral tomography?
Why is Coronary Artery Calcium Scoring [CACS] important? With CACS your doctor can detect CAD before symptoms or a heart attack. If your CACS is high for your age [>75th percentile], your risk of heart attack is about 10 times greater than a lower score. By comparison, a high cholesterol [>240 mg/dl] shows a risk of 1.8 times greater and high blood pressure shows a risk of 1.2 times greater than normal people.
How long does it take to do all this?
What is the utility of this new scanner?
• Rule out CAD in people with atypical chest pain and low to moderate likelihood of CAD
• Reduce the rate of unnecessary angiography in patients with a questionable treadmill test
• Help determine ischemic vs nonischemic origin in newly diagnosed cardiomyopathy
What else can this scanner do?
• Aortic Dissection-rapid and always available, known as CT Body Angiography
• Because of its speed, it is great if kids need tests. They are scanned and back in mom and dad�s arms before being too upset.
• Because of the advanced computer design, this scanner can make three-dimensional pictures of any area scanned
It is our goal at PAHCS to continually improve and expand our uses of this technology, and to offer state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment to our patients and referring physicians. For more information, contact your physician or the radiology manager at 320-243-7770.
Paynesville Area Health Care System presents an exciting new technology in cardiovascular medicine for the prevention and treatment of coronary artery disease:
High speed, multi-detector, spiral tomography.
Once pictures of your heart are taken, they can be analyzed for the amount of calcium. This is then converted to a score. The score can be compared to a large number of others to help determine your risk of a heart attack or to help guide and follow treatment. In other words, it can help your doctor prevent your heart attack or see if treatment of your cholesterol is working.
Coronary Artery Disease [CAD] is the number one cause of death in the developed world. The lifetime chance of a man getting CAD is 50 percent, a woman is 33 percent. If a person develops chest pain, they already have a blockage of about 70 percent of at least one of the coronary arteries. But about two-thirds of people who have a heart attack have only a 50 percent blockage. Their first symptom is a heart attack. About one-third of these people die!
The scanner includes all of the current state-of-the-art advances in CT technology. You will be asked to complete a short risk assessment questionnaire and the procedure will be explained. Three EKG electrodes will be placed on your chest and you will be asked to lie down on a bed. The scan takes a few seconds. Unless specifically requested, no IV or dye is needed. A report will be generated by the radiologist and explained to you by your doctor.
This scanner can do all the normal CT tests
Plus:
• Detect pulmonary embolism [P.E.]. This will be a new and always available test at PAHCS to rapidly diagnose P.E., known as a CT Pulmonary Angiography