Alberta’s FIRST private facility to offer
64-slice Coronary CT Angiography
(a fast, accurate, non-invasive means of identifying and diagnosing coronary artery disease)
Coronary artery disease is the leading killer of Canadian men and women. By Health Canada estimation, 37% of men and 41% of women will eventually die of some form of cardiovascular disease.
The most common heart disease is coronary artery disease (CAD). As plaque builds up inside the coronary arteries (a condition known as atherosclerosis), they narrow and may become blocked, preventing oxygen-rich blood from reaching your heart.
Some people with CAD experience chest tightness, breathlessness or gaseous discomfort. More typically, they experience angina – pain or pressure in the chest that’s heightened with physical exertion. All too often, though, a heart attack is the first sign of coronary artery disease, and many heart attack victims never reach a hospital.
Are you at risk?
Numerous factors – either alone or in combination – can increase your risk of CAD:
• Smoking
• Diets heavy in saturated fat
• Physical inactivity
• Prolonged stress
• A family history of heart disease
• Being overweight
Medical conditions such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and diabetes are also potential risk factors. Men run a higher risk of developing the disease than pre-menopausal women. After menopause, the incidence of CAD in women increases and can be equal to that of men.
Angiography is a medical procedure performed to help diagnose coronary artery disease and identify patients at risk of Heart Attack. With conventional angiography – the procedure performed in most hospitals and clinics today – a catheter is inserted into the femoral artery and threaded up to the heart, allowing physicians to inspect the coronary arteries. The conventional angiogram carries a small, but real risk of adverse events such as bleeding, hematoma, infection, stroke, coronary artery dissection – even death.
A Safer, Less Invasive Alternative
A coronary CT Angiography, or CCTA is a simple, non-invasive method of examining the coronary vessels that supply blood to the heart. Because CCTA uses computed tomography (CT) technology, the procedure is precise, painless, quick and delivers very accurate results. Furthermore, while conventional angiography requires fasting before the procedure and hours of hospitalized recuperation afterward, CCTA requires minimal preparation and no recovery time. In terms of patient-friendliness, CCTA is truly unrivaled.
As a diagnostic test or in the routine screening of individuals at high risk of heart disease, CCTA offers immense value as a pre-emptive, potentially life-saving tool. Coronary CT Angiography can discover signs of heart disease that would be invisible to EKGs, stress tests, heart scans (calcium scoring) and even cardiac catheterizations. Unlike the heart scan, CCTA detects both calcified plaque and perhaps more importantly noncalcified (soft or vulnerable) plaques. It is these soft plaques, invisible to the heart scan, that are more likely the cause of heart attacks and sudden death. Articles in cardiology journals indicate that coronary CT angiography is 95% sensitive for detecting a significant stenosis (narrowing) of coronary arteries. More importantly, CCTA can predict when your coronary arteries are normal with 97% reliability, a statistic unprecedented in medical imaging. So when CCTA shows you have normal coronary arteries, you can be almost certain that they are.
Talk to your physician about CCTA if any of the following conditions apply to you:
• Strong risk factors but no prior evidence of coronary artery disease
• Atypical chest pain
• Inconclusive cardiac testing by other noninvasive means
• Interval assessment of documented coronary artery disease
• Assessment of coronary artery stents and bypass grafts
• Unexplained left ventricular systolic dysfunction
• Preoperative assessment of valvular heart disease
For more information about procedures, pricing or scheduling availability contact us.