Heart scans useless in low risk patients
Widely used heart vessels CT scans may not be beneficial for patients with no symptoms of heart disease and may lead to over treatment, a new study says.
Johns Hopkins University researchers found that widespread screening for heart disease using computed tomographic (CT) angiography has little short-term benefit for people with no symptoms of heart disease.
The rapidly growing new technology produces a detailed image of the heart, revealing cholesterol buildups in the coronary arteries.
The research, conducted in Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, concluded that the new technology should not be used for screening people with no cardiovascular symptoms as it may lead to over diagnosis and unnecessary costly treatments.
Performing CT angiography in asymptomatic individuals may expose the patients to potentially unnecessary radiation as well as probable side effects of taking medications or undergoing aggressive treatments such as surgery, said the report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
"Our findings suggest that low-risk patients without symptoms don’t benefit in the short term from knowing whether or not plaque has been detected using CT angiography," said lead author John W. McEvoy. "However, their physicians may be inclined to be more aggressive with prescriptions or follow-up tests."
Physicians cannot easily ignore the diagnoses made by the new imaging techniques, McEvoy added. "We are left with the dilemma of what to do with the results."
"If someone has risk factors for heart disease, but no symptoms, the doctor would be best served by doing a good physical, taking a history and measuring risk factors and treating those risk factors," he suggested.
Source: presstv.ir
