Using CT scans to find patients at greater risk of heart attack

Evaluation of the efficacy of computed tomographic coronary angiography in assessing coronary artery morphology and physiology

People who have coronary heart disease – when the arteries feeding the heart are narrowed by fatty plaques – are at risk of having a heart attack. But the risk isn’t the same for everyone, because plaques that are settled and stable may not cause any problems. Those that are aggressive and inflamed are likely to rupture and could cause a heart attack. It may be possible to identify people at greatest risk by finding these high-risk plaques, but we need to find a safe and reliable way to do this. Currently the best way to study the inside of our coronary arteries is during coronary angiography, when a wire is inserted inside the vessel. But it is an invasive method that carries risks. This team of cardiologists and engineers, led by Dr Christos Bourantas, believe that using non-invasive CT scanning (a type of X-ray scan) to image the arteries could be a better option. They will test whether a CT scan can detect high-risk plaques in 70 people with known heart disease. The team will also develop a method to rapidly process the CT scan data so it can be more easily interpreted by doctors. If the results of the project are positive, CT could in the future be the way we find and treat people that are most likely to have a heart attack.