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Biotech / Medical : IMAT - ultrafast tomography for coronary artery disease -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: art slott who wrote (2932)	2/16/1999 5:26:00 PM
From: art slott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3725

Article!! Reuters! by: westpacific 5862 of 5863 Monday February 15 12:04 PM ET Noninvasive method identifies blocked arteries NEW YORK, Feb 15 (Reuters Health) -- A noninvasive scan is effective in detecting severe blockages in arteries that can trigger heart attacks and strokes, report researchers in the February issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The imaging technique, called electron-beam computed tomography (CT), measures the quantity of calcium in the coronary arteries, which has been found to correspond closely to the degree of artery blockage. The current ''gold standard'' for identifying blocked arteries is coronary angiography, a painful, expensive imaging test that involves the injection of a dye to outline the interior of the arteries that feed heart muscle. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, administered the rapid CT scan to 291 patients with suspected coronary artery disease. They also assessed other risk factors such as the patient's sex and whether or not he or she had diabetes. In doing so, they developed a simple index to noninvasively identify patients who were likely to have coronary artery disease. ''By combining the calcium score with information about risk factors, we can now identify patients who are likely to have severe blockages,'' senior author Dr. Robert S. Schwartz explained in a press statement. ''Patients with low scores on our index are unlikely to have severe coronary disease,'' he continued, while ''patients with high scores are more likely to have severe disease and should probably undergo further tests.'' Diabetic males with high calcium scores on rapid CT emerged as those most likely to have severe coronary artery disease, according to the research team's index. SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Cardiology 1999;33:444-452. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: Feb 16 1999 3:08PM EST as a reply to: Msg 1 by YahooFinance Replies: View Replies to this Message