Heart scan service starts
HCA’s The Harley Street Clinic has announced it is the first UK private hospital to offer a revolutionary new prediction technology, called CaRi-Heart.
Consultant cardiologist Prof Ronak Rajani said the pioneering scan offered hope and reassurance to potentially thousands of people with heart problems or a family history of heart disease.
He told Independent Practitioner Today: ‘The technology allows patients to understand their risk of having a significant heart attack in the future, far enough in advance for them to put preventative measures in place.’
Prof Rajani said a published study involving approximately 4,000 patients who were followed up for nine years after their original CT angiogram (CCTA) scan showed that an abnormal Fat Attenuation Index (FAI) was associated with up to a nine-fold increase in sustaining a fatal heart attack in the next nine years compared with those with low or normal FAI readings.
‘The study also showed that at least one-third of patients who underwent a routine CCTA and were initially considered low risk had a much higher risk after CaRi-Heart was applied to their scan.
‘This demonstrates that CaRi-Heart is more thorough in determining risk than a CCTA scan alone and as a result, could potentially help save lives.’
A test costs £495.
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