How to detect heart disease with a simple test

Transcript

Welcome to Radnet Mink facility. It's good to see you. Thank you. So what brings you in today? So I've had high cholesterol for the last couple years, I'd say in my 50s has steadily gone up. And I know that my dad had high cholesterol. It surprised me that I have high cholesterol cause I'm pretty healthy. I haven't had meat, red meat and over 30 years, you know, and then I heard about this exam and I just thought, you know what, why I should be. Preemptive, right? That's really great. And you know, it's, it's really important that you know what you said, being preemptive. So you're not having any symptoms right now. And that's really the time that is best to catch someone because as you mentioned, you have that family history and you have high cholesterol. And while you don't have symptoms, that doesn't mean that you don't have coronary artery disease. So you know, it's, it's really interesting. A lot of patients wait until they have symptoms and at that point you're left with if it is. Progressed potentially bypasses very aggressive medical therapy or a stent and you coming in early, not having symptoms that would really give you the ability to catch this early and really stop it in its tracks depending on on where things are at. So your screen women for breast cancer with mammograms at a certain age, it's not just having symptoms and then coming in for a mammogram. But for heart disease, lot of times people wait until they have symptoms and you're being reactive instead of proactive. Said you had a family history of coronary heart disease. Yeah. And how old was that family member when they were diagnosed? I think my father had a heart attack maybe around 70. And his father had the surgery. Maybe around my age even. Actually, I'm 5756. I keep aging myself. It's interesting because someone who say they had a heart attack at age 70 or even, you know, it could be 7. It it's been very uncommon for someone to have a heart attack and not have significant underlying coronary artery disease to some extent and that did not happen overnight. So someone has a heart attack at age 70. If you get caught that 10 years earlier, do you think had 10 years of progression in that intro between age 60 and 70 that maybe you could have caught that And the high probability if you catch it early enough, you can stop it and track so. Think about like, you know, I have the opportunity to do something that my father, my grandfather didn't have access to, right? Because it wasn't, didn't exist. So your doctor ordered a coronary artery calcium score. And what that's going to be is we have the CT scanner here behind you. You're going to be on the table. We're going to play some EKG leads on you. You're not going to have an IV placed. There's not going to be any dye, any contrast administered. You're going to be on the table. You're going to go in and out of that doughnut within a few seconds, you're going to be asked to hold your breath and then the scan will be done. So great, So be very fast. Yeah. No, no, I needed no other medication. Very quick and easy. What the exam is looking for is calcified plaque in your coronary arteries. Now, when someone has risk factors like you do, strong family history, hyperlipidemia, sometimes patients might have other risk factors. Diabetes, elevated lycra protein A. There are many things which could contribute to your overall risk for coronary artery disease. A coronary artery calcium score is. Good screening test to determine if you have calcified plaque buildup. If you don't have, you have a calcium score of 0, there's a low probability that you have significant coronary artery stenosis. The probability is not zero. You still could have non calcified plaque, but it's a good screening test to determine your overall risk in that point in time. OK. And then one other thing, I was just reading something because that it's, it's not uncommon just as you age to develop plaque. It's not uncommon, but it doesn't mean it's a normal process. Just because something is common doesn't mean that it's not pathology. People over the age of 40, from 4 to 65, approximately 50% of those patients, when you actually look at a coronary arteries, we'll have coronary artery disease. So while it is a common process, just as it's common for people when they age to get arthritis in their knee or lower back, it doesn't mean that you don't have arthritis. It's still a process that can cause symptoms and be debilitating. So you're going to see some patients, we image 60s and 70s who don't have any plaque, the corners of. Great. And then you image patients and 50% over the age of 40 will, so every patient's a little different. Just because you have a small amount of plaque doesn't mean that it's not still coronary artery disease. So and that can progress and in many patients left untreated, if you don't modify your lifestyle, it will often progress, OK. Alright, Are you ready? Let's do it. OK, All right, let's go. So Stephanie, good news, your calcium score is right up here it is 0. We do not see any calcified plaque in your coronary arteries, which is great. They call it the power of 0. When the calcium score is zero, that is a very good indicator that you do not have significant coronary heart disease. If your immediate risk is low, is it 100% absolute certainty that there's no non calcified plaque? No, this is a good screening test, but they do call the power of 0. Anything greater than 0 is a bit of a Gray area about the extent of coronary artery disease and what to do next. So overall that's very good news. You have a very low risk with a calcium score of 0. So even with your strong family history and your high cholesterol, we know that your overall risk right now is low and that you don't necessarily need to be as aggressive as someone who might have a very high calcified plaque, right? So you can take this results back to your doctor. Your doctor will get a copy of these facts to them or sent to them however they choose to receive the results, and then you can follow up with them to discuss next steps. But commonly this is a good way to know if someone has. And immediate very high risk that you might need to be more aggressive with. For Someone Like You with a calcium score of 0, it would not be unreasonable to be more conservative with lifestyle modifications as well as potentially medication. But you don't need to be as aggressive.