• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Sunday, October 5, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

Calcium in arteries is shown to increase patients’ imminent risk of a heart attack

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
March 16, 2019
in Health
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
IMAGE
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute

About six million people come into an emergency department every year with chest pain, but not all of them are having a heart attack — and many are not even at risk or are at very low risk for having one.

Now, a new research study presented at the American College Cardiology Scientific Sessions from the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City shows that identifying the presence or absence of coronary artery calcium (CAC) in a patients’ arteries can help determine their future risk.

“Through these results, we’re seeing more clearly that the presence of coronary artery calcium can help us to predict who is more likely to have a cardiac event, not only later in life, but when symptoms are present, in the near future and hopefully, medically intervene in time to stop it,” said Viet T. Le, PA-C, principal investigator and researcher at the Intermountain Healthcare Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.

Results of the study were presented at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Sessions in Atlanta on March 16, 2019.

For the study, researchers identified 5,547 patients without a history of coronary artery disease who came to Intermountain Medical Center with chest pain between April 2013 and June 2016.

These patients had undergone PET/CT scans to assess for ischemia, a disruption of normal blood flow through the heart arteries to the muscle tissues of the heart. This scan also looks for the presence of CAC, which are calcium deposits on the walls of the heart’s arteries, indicating atherosclerosis, or plaque, the hallmark of heart disease. The researchers then examined patients’ medical outcomes for up to the next four years.

Researchers found that patients whose scans revealed CAC were at higher risk of having a heart event within 90 days compared with patients whose PET/CT showed they had no CAC. Researchers also found that patients with CAC were also more likely over the following years to have high-grade obstructive coronary artery disease, revascularization surgery, and/or other major adverse cardiac events than patients who had no coronary artery calcium.

The findings can be used in two different ways, said Le.

First, testing for CAC can help emergency departments quickly identify those patients with chest pain, but are not in acute distress as being at risk for a future heart event from those who may have non-heart related symptoms and should follow up with their primary care physician to identify the true source of the chest pain, which may be as simple as a pulled muscle. These CAC scans are non-invasive, use only as much radiation as a mammogram, and are relatively cheap, especially compared to PET/CT stress tests, Le said.

Second, CAC isn’t easily visually identifiable at low or moderate levels in the arteries without a formal scan. Checking patients who are not actively found to be experiencing a heart event but who have suspicious symptoms when they come to the ED can help physicians identify who is at risk for a future event. This allows for early initiation of risk reducing lifestyle changes in those found to have CAC to avoid future events.

“We can have that discussion about improving their lifestyle a little sooner this way because they may not be having an acute event but they’re looking down the barrel of one, so let’s see if we can move that barrel away,” said Le.

Future studies are needed to demonstrate whether a CAC first strategy in these symptomatic patients will better identify those who should have further stress testing as well as improve patient education and early implementation of risk reducing strategies.

###

This research was funded by the Intermountain Foundation.

Media Contact
Jess C. Gomez
[email protected]

Tags: CardiologyCholesterolDiagnosticsEpidemiologyInternal MedicineMedicine/HealthMetabolism/Metabolic DiseasesPhysiologyStroke
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

ICU Nurses’ Perspectives on End-of-Life Care

October 5, 2025

Exchange Transfusion Impact on Severe Infant Pertussis

October 5, 2025

Smyd3 Loss Boosts WAT Browning via PPARγ Enhancement

October 5, 2025

Spectator Medicine: Analyzing Men’s Ice Hockey Health Trends

October 5, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    94 shares
    Share 38 Tweet 24
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    92 shares
    Share 37 Tweet 23
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    75 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • New Insights Suggest ALS May Be an Autoimmune Disease

    70 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 18

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

ICU Nurses’ Perspectives on End-of-Life Care

Exploring Splicing Patterns in Medicinal Rheum Palmatum

Exchange Transfusion Impact on Severe Infant Pertussis

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Success! An email was just sent to confirm your subscription. Please find the email now and click 'Confirm' to start subscribing.

Join 62 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.