CardioExchange Archive

February 16th, 2015

Case: Rising Coronary Artery Calcium in a Patient Who Has a Normal Stress Echo with an Abnormal ECG

Ethan J Weiss, M.D.

A 74-year-old physically active man exercises daily, takes a statin for hyperlipidemia, and has no other risk factors aside from a mildly elevated hemoglobin A1c. His most recent lipid profile, in January 2015, was: Total-c: 144 mg/dL LDL-c: 84 mg/dL HDL-c: 48 mg/dL Triglycerides: 59 mg/dL His coronary artery calcium scores were 109.5 in the year […]

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December 11th, 2014

Triple-Vessel Disease in an Asymptomatic Man: CABG, PCI, or Medical Management?

Amit Shah, MD, MSCR and James Fang, MD

Amit Shah presents the case of a 66-year-old, physically active, nondiabetic man with no symptoms who was tested for coronary artery calcium and received an unexpectedly high score.

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October 14th, 2014

Inappropriate Cardiac Stress Tests May Cost Half a Billion Dollars a Year

Larry Husten, PHD

Inappropriate cardiac stress tests may cost the U.S. healthcare system as much as half a billion dollars each year, according to a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Joseph Ladapo and colleagues set out to analyze long-term trends in the use of cardiac stress testing in the U.S. Using data from national surveys, they found […]

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November 8th, 2011

Financial Incentives Increase Use of Stress Tests

Larry Husten, PHD

Following coronary revascularization, patients are more likely to undergo cardiac stress testing if their physician has a financial interest in the test, according to a new study published in JAMA. Bimal Shah and colleagues examined insurance data from 17,847 patients who underwent revascularization, dividing their physicians into three groups: those who billed for technical and professional fees, […]

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July 23rd, 2010

Radiation Exposure in Cardiac Imaging

Jersey Chen, MD MPH

CardioExchange welcomes Jersey Chen to discuss his recent study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology , which describes radiation exposure from cardiac imaging procedures in the general population. Chen and his colleagues concluded that “cardiac imaging procedures lead to substantial radiation exposure and effective doses for many patients in the U.S.” Your paper […]

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