By Sheila Dwyer, Body1 Staff
Heart disease is the leading killer in the United States. Several methods are available to assess your risk of developing the condition, but one in particular was proven to be effective in the March issue of the American Heart Journal.
Electron beam tomography (EBT) is a diagnostic tool that can assess the risk of heart attack in people with no relevant symptoms. Researchers from Tulane University Medical Center in New Orleans performed EBT scans on patients using Imatron Inc.’s proprietary EBT scanner.
An EBT scanner is a multidimensional X-ray. The scanner creates two- and three-dimensional images of the inner workings of the human body using cross-sectioned images culled from X-ray transmission data. The vessels or cavities within the body are filled with a contrast agent for clear viewing, so the scanner can retrieve images from the same axial plane at different angles.
The Tulane researchers compared results from EBT scanning with standard risk factors to determine ultimately that the EBT scan was a better predictor of a patient’s heart attack risk. The risk factors included age, cholesterol level, family history, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
EBT scanning measures coronary artery calcification (CAC), which can determine heart attack risk. The researchers concluded that CAC was “the best event predictor across all models” and “relative measure of CAC found on screening EBT studies offer incremental prognostic information that may improve our ability to predict CAD (coronary artery disease) events.”
S. Lewis Meyer, CEO of Imatron, said in a statement “There can be no doubt that a diagnostic tool with the predictive power and sensitivity of the EBT coronary artery scan has the potential to revolutionize the way we deal with coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.
Reference:
Medical Industry Today
