• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Looking into Your Heart University Hospital Votes to Buy Scanner to Help in Diagnosis

Posted on: Tuesday, 29 November 2005, 03:02 CST

By Tom Corwin< Staff Writer

Sylvia Raborn has a little yellow around her heart, which is not a good thing.

The coronary calcium scan she got at Augusta Cardiology Clinic showed a mild amount of calcium from some fatty plaque in the artery on the front of her heart, which shows up yellow on the scan.

Cardiologist Stephen Broadwater characterized as a "mild" amount.

"Based on this test, I can tell you that you do have some evidence of fatty cholesterol buildup," Dr. Broadwater told Mrs. Raborn. This is of more concern because she is a diabetic who has had high cholesterol and blood pressure problems.

"That just tells us that we need to be more aggressive about treating your risk factors, getting your cholesterol down, keeping your blood sugar normal, watching diet and exercise," Dr. Broadwater said.

While the Augusta practice is the only one in town doing the scans with a 16-slice CT scanner, University Hospital might soon be getting into the business. The hospital's board voted Thursday to buy a $1.6 million, 64-slice CT scanner that can do CT coronary angiograms at a much higher resolution than the 16-slice machine, according to cardiologist Ward Rogers.

University must secure a Certificate of Need from the state before it can buy the machine. The machine most likely will be used to evaluate chest pain and should help reduce the 40 percent of diagnostic cardiac catheterizations that turn out to be normal, Dr. Rogers said.

It is also much less expensive than a cath and much better tolerated than a stress test, Dr. Rogers said.

"It is infinitely more patient-friendly than our current technology," he said.

The CT angiogram will not replace the stress test for some patients but might be the next step if there is an abnormal or even a "suspicious" test, Dr. Broadwater said.

"I think the bigger debate is where it fits in the grand scheme of things," he said. "How do you use the test?"

In some cases, the CT angiogram would be better because it is able to detect smaller blockage and the "soft" plaques that are more likely to cause heart attacks, Dr. Rogers said.

The calcium scan, on the other hand, is for people without symptoms or documented heart disease who nonetheless have risk factors, such as diabetes or a strong family history, as Mrs. Raborn does, Dr. Broadwater said. It can give doctors a tool to help the patient get serious about prevention, cardiologist Alex MacDonell said.

"You've got hard numbers to say, 'You may be feeling fine, no chest pain, nothing at all, but this is what we see. You really need to go over your risk factors and concentrate on these things to lower your long-term risk.'"

Reach Tom Corwin at (706) 823-3213 or tom.corwin@augustachronicle.com.

Source: Augusta Chronicle, The

More News in this Category