Advancements in Cardiac Imaging in Louisville, KY

Eric Kreps, MD:

A coronary CT angiography or a cardiac CT is a relatively newer test that's come out with cardiology that really helps with first diagnosis of patients with acute chest pain. So the heart obviously is constantly moving inside of the chest. In order for us to visualize it, the heart has to be still. The beauty of a cardiac CT is actually timing. And the scanner actually waits for the heart to get still, and then it's able to take pictures of the heart while it's still, and that allows us to look directly inside of the heart vessels and basically create 3D maps and look for any blockages that allow us to early diagnosis and prevention of future heart problems. And that's why cardiac CT is become a more popular imaging test. The best candidate for someone to get a cardiac CT is a patient with new onset chest pain that you're not sure where it's coming from.

They're not sure if it's coming from the heart or somewhere else, or even they're worried about their heart or they have a strong family history of heart disease and some signals coming from their body that just aren't right. If we do find heart disease early, say heart disease with heart vessel blockages, it is absolutely treatable. Talk about lifestyle modifications, healthy diet and exercise for patients. So we call them Mediterranean diet, but of course there are other pharmacologic therapies too with either cholesterol medicines, blood pressure medicines, all those things rolled in together can help prevent the progression and then help people live longer and live healthier lives. That's the goal.