Thomas does caution that the Edinburgh study has limitations — it only studies a limited number of people, and of the patients they studied who had a heart attack, 36 of those 40 patients were men.

The common trigger behind women’s heart attacks, plaque erosion, may work differently than the plaque examined in this study so its results might not apply to them, experts say. "So we don't know how this will work in women," said Thomas.


"I’d be interested to see if this method would detect those plaques too. It would also be good validation for this theory. Let’s say it doesn’t detect plaque erosion, only plaque rupture — we could distinguish between these two and learn more about what causes heart attacks. I think it would be very useful research," said Haraszti.

Researchers also still don't know for certain whether this calcification occurs pre- or post-rupture. This is important to establish, since detecting the plaque only after rupture would significantly limit its usefulness.

And there's still no treatment available for patients who have high-risk plaque, meaning this imaging test may precede the cure needed to make it useful. But this may quickly change as the industry comes up with new treatments or therapies to treat this plaque.

On the other hand, the scan could still be used as a novel research tool to come up with new therapies to stabilize plaque.

"I think it's a landmark study," said Thomas.

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