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In this segment of KSMU's series on heart disease, learn the latest techniques for diagnosing and treating coronary disease.
900,000 Americans suffer heart attacks each year. And because of the new technology that's constantly being developed, more of them are surviving.
Dr. David Cochran, cardiologist and Medical Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Lab at St. John's Health System, says education has helped bring people to the hospital faster. The sooner a heart attack is treated, the better the patient's outcome.
Once a person arrives at the hospital, they'll usually first have an echocardiogram or an EKG. They're then often given aspirin and may be given blood thinners while more definitive tests are done.
St. John's has used the 64-slice CT Scanner, for about a year and half to diagnose coronary disease. In the past, Dr. Cochran says, the options were a stress test, and, if those were abnormal, an angiogram was done.
If a person is diagnosed with coronary artery disease, they may require a procedure to open up their arteries. The procedures used to open blocked arteries have gradually improved over time, according to Dr. Cochran. He says the ability to open blockages using a catheter approach has constantly evolved since the 1970s.
When stents came along, the restenosis rate was reduced by at least half of what it used to be—15 to 20%. In 2003, drug-eluting stents became available.
According to Dr. Cochran, stent technology is constantly evolving. Research is ongoing into stents that are safer. The downside of the current drug-eluting stents is that patients must take blood thinners for 12 months. Some people can't tolerate that, so not everyone's a candidate.
He says bio-absorbable stents, which achieve the same result, could be on the horizon along with different polymers that would reduce the amount of time a patient would need to be on drug thinners.
There's a lot of new technology at the forefront, he says, as far as physicians' ability to diagnose and treat peripheral vascular disease. The same type of CT scanning that's available for the heart can also be used on the corroted arteries in the neck and legs. He says they have a better ability now to diagnose the extent of vascular disease. And he says they have newer and safer devices for treating blockages once they find them.
Research into medications is also ongoing. Dr. Lakshmi Parvathaneni says medical therapy has made a big impact, especially in the prevention of heart disease.
Defibrillators are also saving lives, especially as they are made available in more and more places.
Tomorrow morning at 7:30 as our series on heart disease continues, we'll focus on life after a heart attack.
The program is available on the web at ksmu.org.
For KSMU News, I'm Michele Skalicky.