I often hear stories of a guy who has a heart attack and come to find out that 95% of a major blood vessel to the heart was clogged.
How is this not picked up earlier during normal exams? Why isn’t it?
Can’t they do radiation shots to see where the blood flows or whatever?
In: Biology
A rule of thumb in medicine—don’t order a test if you’re not going to to do something about it. The problem w/ general screening exams w/o symptoms, the risks of diagnosis usually outweigh benefits (there are some exceptions like colonoscopy, mammogram, pap smears, CXR in smokers). In the case of asymptomatic atherosclerosis, no cardiologist worth their salt is going to stent a patient w/o symptoms.
Things like calcium score CT’s are used to risk stratify patients, like whether they should take aspirin or Statin
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