Piedmont Heart Institute, Atlanta, Ga Heart Doctors

ATLANTA (September 25, 2009) - Heart doctors have known that certain plaques in the small arteries that feed the heart muscle - coronary arteries - can rupture and cause significant events such as heart attack or sudden cardiac death.  The difficulty is being able to predict which of the plaques in an artery are most prone to rupture.  An analogy that would be similar to trying to predict which of many volcanoes would be the most prone to explode.

Heart doctors gathered at the Transcatheter Therapeutic meeting held in San Francisco this week released the results from the Predictors of Response to Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (PROSPECT) trial.  The trial showed sophisticated techniques which not only can look inside the small arteries but also determine the make up and the size of the plaques, and found that certain characteristics of the plaques denoted a population who in the future might be at high risk for developing major cardiac events.  These findings were based upon the use of intracoronary ultrasound as well as a way to measure the makeup of the plaques this is called virtual histology.

Doctors at Piedmont Heart Institute have participated in the PROSPECT trial and similar research whereby low-radiation CT scanning can non-invasively detect not only the presence of the plaques, but certain features of the plaques that might denote those plaques most likely to rupture, and hence to cause patients significant cardiac events.

And why is this important?  If one thinks about the case of celebrated news reporter Tim Russert, his sudden cardiac death highlights the fact that knowing a patient has a plaque that might be prone to rupture could lead to appropriate intervention be it medical or otherwise.

For further information, or to speak with physicians at Piedmont Heart Institute, contact 404-605-3372.