Why can’t/don’t doctors regularly check to see if your arteries are majorly clogged?

Question

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

Answer 1

The arteries on the surface of your heart are… Small. You can’t see them from the outside. There’s lots of risk factors for having coronary artery disease and if you have any of them, like a family history, high cholesterol, or it shows up on other tests (like a stress test) then the doctors will pay much closer attention. But to routinely screen people with no risk factors who haven’t displayed any other signs, just isn’t feasible. Cardiac cath procedures are incredibly invasive and not 100% safe.