Researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City have found that incorporating underused, but available, imaging technologies, such as PET/CT scans, more precisely predicts who’s at risk for heart attacks and similar threats — in time to prevent them.

For their study researchers measured the level of calcium in the coronary arteries of patients during stress testing using two common diagnostic tests: positron emission tomography, or PET, and computed tomography, or CT — to determine a patient’s risk of heart disease.

Coronary artery calcification is highly prevalent in patients with coronary artery disease and is associated with major adverse cardiovascular events. Atherosclerosis – or hardening of the arteries – is the main cause of heart disease. It occurs because of calcium build-up in the blood vessels, resulting in hard and narrow arteries. This then leads to problems such as blood flow obstruction and other heart issues.
More than 8,000 patients with no history of coronary artery disease, heart attack, or known restricted blood flow to the heart, were part of the study. They were treated at a physician clinic or the hospital with symptoms of suspected heart disease, and underwent PET/CT imaging between 2013 to 2016.

Of those patients, researchers found that 53.2 percent had no calcium in the coronary arteries, while 46.8 percent did. Within 60 days, they found:

Six percent of patients with no calcium underwent coronary angiography, compared to 10.8 percent who had calcium.
8 percent of patients with no calcium went on to receive revascularization to restore blood flow to the heart, compared to 6.5 percent of patients who had calcium in their coronary arteries.
9 percent of patients with no calcium had a major adverse coronary artery event, such as a heart attack, compared to 6 percent of patients with calcium.
4 percent of patients with no calcium died, compared to 4.2 percent of patients with calcium
“Conducting a PET/CT test to measure coronary artery calcium means clinicians can tell the difference between the potential risk of heart disease and actually having disease,” said Viet Le, PA-C, lead author of the study, and a physician assistant and cardiovascular researcher in the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute. “High blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, and smoking are all risks of heart disease, yet many people who have those risks never have the disease or suffer an event. Coronary artery calcium is the disease — and to an extent, it shows just how much of the disease is present.”

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