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
When a heart attack happens, it is actually arteries that are mildly blocked (20-30%) with plaque that suddenly rupture and form a platelet clot. So these patients do not have symptoms, living their life OK with a 20-30% blockage and within an hour suddenly form a blockage of 95-100%. This is what is seen during heart attacks and immediately treated with cardiac catheterization and stenting. Doing invasive testing and treating those asymptomatic 20-30% lesions will cause more harm that good.
If you have a stable 70-90% blockage, it is something that has grown slowly and causes angina or chest pain during exertion. These are usually not the blockages that cause heart attacks and sudden death.
Lots of generalizations here but this is ELI5.
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