Cardiac Scans May Not Be Safe
· A cardiac scan is a form of CAT scan that provides an image of the arteries around the heart. The cardiac scan uses radiation directed at the heart to look for plaque(coronary artery disease) and risk of heart attack.
· The safety of this procedure is now being called into question by a recent article published in Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers from the University of Munich in Germany reported that “the average exposure from CT scans of the heart was 885 milligrays percentimeter,” but there was a very large difference in the amount of radiation used by different centers preforming these scans and authors suggested that physicians “limit the use of CT heart scans.”
· This amount of radiation directed at the heart may not be safe. Ionizing radiation is known to be cancer causing and can be inflammatory and potentially harmful to coronary arteries.
· Given these potential risks, candidates for the procedure should be carefully screened before undergoing this examination.
February 5, 2009
Posted on February 5, 2009
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