April 24, 2012
New technique could improve heart attack prediction
We’ve funded an award-winning research project
that could improve how doctors predict a person’s risk of heart
attack.
Our scientists have, for the first time,
combined two medical
imaging technologies called positron emission tomography
(PET) and computerised tomography (CT) to look at the processes in
coronary heart disease (CHD) that
lead to a heart attack.
The researchers, who are based at the
University of Edinburgh – a BHF Centre of Research Excellence, demonstrated
the potential of using PET and CT scanning to look directly into
the walls of the arteries that supply blood to the heart. If these
arteries become blocked, it can cause a heart attack. CHD kills 88,000
people in the UK each year; most of these deaths are
caused by a heart attack.
Current ways of looking for heart disease
This research is a technical tour de force
People
experiencing chest pain are often given a calcium CT score– a standard test that
shows the amount of calcified or hardened plaques building up in
the arteries. The score is used to assess the likelihood
this pain is caused by CHD but it cannot show the
difference between calcium that’s been there for some time and
calcium that’s actively building up.
The new technique
The scientists, working in collaboration with
the University of Cambridge, gave
over 100 people a calcium CT score. They then used specialist PET
scans to show areas where calcium was building up. They think
that arteries with active calcium build-up may be those with
plaques more likely to cause a heart
attack.
Dr Marc Dweck, who led the research and is one
of our Clinical Research Fellows,
said:
“If we can identify patients at high risk of a
heart attack earlier, we can then use intensive
drug treatments, and perhaps procedures such as stents, to
reduce the chances of them having a heart
attack.”
Dr Shannon Amoils, our Research Advisor,
said:
“For decades cardiologists have been looking
for ways to detect the high-risk plaques found in coronary arteries
that could rupture to cause a heart attack, but it’s been
difficult to develop a suitable imaging test that
can focus in on these small vessels.
"This research is a technical tour de
force as it allows us to assess active calcification
happening right in the problem area – inside the wall of the
coronary arteries and this active calcification may correlate with
a higher risk of a heart attack."
Dr Dweck received two international
awards for this research: the William W Parmley Young
Author Award and the Young Investigator Award by the Journal
of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) and the American
College of Cardiology, respectively. He is also using this imaging
technology to improve our understanding of the valve disease,
aortic stenosis.
This research is published in the medical
journal JACC.