Word: ct
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...least that's where things stood until recently. The past 18 months have brought a wave of advances in cardiac imaging, leading many doctors to wonder whether it's time to change the way they diagnose and treat heart disease. Leading the way are improvements in CT (for computed tomography) scanning, which uses highly specialized X-ray machines to take multiple, finely layered pictures of the heart and surrounding blood vessels. Sophisticated computer programs sort the data to generate amazingly detailed, three-dimensional images like the ones that alerted Fackelmann's doctors to his hidden heart problem. Advances in other...
...diagnosis a lot easier. "We used to say to patients who came in with chest pain [and no other signs of cardiac disease], 'I don't think you have coronary disease,'" says Dr. Mario Garcia at the Cleveland Clinic, which has been one of the early adopters of cardiac CT scans. "Now I can tell them, 'I know you don't have coronary disease.' That's a big difference...
Medical groups are racing to keep up with these changes. In July, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association published their first guidelines on how to train doctors to perform the new cardiac scans. Three studies have shown that cardiac CT is 90% accurate at picking up blockages like Fackelmann's. But no standards have been written yet for determining under what conditions using the new scans makes the most sense, and for which patients. More definitive answers may be forthcoming at the annual American Heart Association meeting in November, when several research groups are expected...
...have 100 million former or current smokers in the United States right now and a lot of them, obviously, are considered at risk for lung cancer. But we haven't agreed on a way to screen all these people. We haven't come up with a reliable program. CT scans are too expensive. And should everyone be exposed to CT scans? That's still being figured...
...next day, a radiologist is flown in from Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station in Puerto Rico, 600 miles away, to read the CT scan. The log reports, "No anomalies were found." Nonetheless, al-Qahtani is given an ultrasound for blood clots. For the first time since the log began, al-Qahtani is given an entire day to sleep. The next evening, the log reports that his medical "checks are all good." Al-Qahtani is "hooded, shackled and restrained in a litter" and transported back to Camp X-Ray in an ambulance...