new TIME MAGAZINE article on the Heart

[Marguerite53]

There is a concise, well-illustrated new article in the September 5, 2005 TIME magazine on how to stop a heart attack before it happens. While the emphasis is on the new technology becoming available for detecting dangerous conditions, I think that we valvers can certainly benefit from the surge in clarity these new instruments are bringing. Please try to look over a copy when they come on the newsstand. Here is a brief bit of the article which I've copied for you.....

? The past 18 months have brought a wave of advances in cardiac imaging, leading many doctors to wonder whether it?s time to change the way they diagnose and treat heart disease. Leading the way are improvements in CT scanning???.What this means is that millions of patients will probably get the treatment that better matches their condition. ??. Meanwhile, no one has given up on more tried-and-true scanning techniques. Doctors perform annually at least 11.5 echocardiagrams which use sound waves to produce pictures of the internal structures of the heart, and more than 9 million nuclear perfusion scans, which use mildly radioactive tracer molecules to measure how well the cardiac muscle is nourished. Improvements in computer processing power and software have made these tests more reliable and more conclusive than ever before. Stress tests, which help doctors detect ischemia, or lack of blood flow to the cardiac muscle, can be performed using either echocardiograms or nuclear scans. ?echocardiograms and nuclear perfusion scanning are the bread and butter of cardiac care? says chief of cardiovascular medicine at Duke Medical Center . They aren?t going away anytime soon?.
The trouble is that there?s no single type of scan that easily and inexpensively shows you everything you need to know about the heart. In addition, some tests are better at evaluating anatomy ? the physical structure of the heart ? while others tell you more about how well various parts are working. Doctors need to know both kinds of information before deciding the best course of treatment. Frequently, a new set of answers raises new questions??the ultimate goal, cardiologists say, is to find the single test that provides ?one-stop shopping? and eliminated the need for invasive or multiple diagnostic scans. That test doesn?t exist yet??.
Sharply detailed CT scans of the brain have been available for years, but it has taken much longer to get similar images of the heart. The reason is simple: the brain doesn?t move. The heart does, meaning conventional images are largely a blur.?

The various heart scan methods are pictured and described. There are interesting facts about your ?calcium score? which is what works with cholesterol to clog up your arteries.

I like the way it simply and concisely explains the why and what for of many of the tests we are being given. We are subscibers, so probably got it earlier than the newsstands. Please have a look at it when it comes out.

Marguerite

 

[Phyllis]

It is an excellent article, Maguerite and one of the things that it mentions is that there is a new experimental cardiac scanner at the Cleveland Clinic that is able to show blockages in the arteries- the hope is that eventually, doctors will be able to use this to see blockages without catherization!

 

[geebee]

Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles has been doing Cardiac CT scans for a couple of years now. I had one in 2003 as part of a research program for patients with high cholesterol to measure arterial buildup (if any). My arteries showed to be clear (that was the case in 1994 before my third OHS). I am hoping this will become a widespread and definitely accurate test as it will determine whether someone really needs all those statin drugs.

I am currently not on meds for high total cholesterol because of the side effects and also because my HDL is very high. I am hoping this turns out to be a good decision but it is the only one for me right now.

 

[Phyllis]

Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles has been doing Cardiac CT scans for a couple of years now. I had one in 2003 as part of a research program for patients with high cholesterol to measure arterial buildup (if any). My arteries showed to be clear (that was the case in 1994 before my third OHS). I am hoping this will become a widespread and definitely accurate test as it will determine whether someone really needs all those statin drugs.

Wouldn't that be great. I am on Pravachol and Zetia to lower my cholesterol and would love not to have to take them. I always have a nagging suspicion that high cholesterol readings have nothing to do with the conditions of your arteries. My father who never had high cholesterol had his first heart attack in his 40's and died at 71 before bypass became as prevalent as it is now. My mother always had high cholesterol and had no heart problems until her early 80's when she developed heart failure.

 

[geebee]

I have always found it interesting that, when you hear all the commercials for cholesterol lowering drugs, they all state: "this drug has not been proven to reduce the risk of heart disease". Well, duh, then what is the point?