What Is Your Cardiac Calcium Score and Why Should You Care?

[cs_section id="" class=" " style="margin: 0px; padding: 05px 0px 5px; " visibility="" parallax="false"][cs_row id="" class=" " style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; " visibility="" inner_container="true" marginless_columns="false" bg_color=""][cs_column id="" class="" style="padding: 0px; " bg_color="" fade="false" fade_animation="in" fade_animation_offset="45px" fade_duration="750" type="1/1"][x_custom_headline level="h2" looks_like="h4" accent="false"]What Is Your Cardiac Calcium Score and Why Should You Care?[/x_custom_headline][cs_text id="" class="" style="" text_align=""]Plaque! It’s a bad thing to have on your teeth and it’s even worse on the walls of your coronary arteries. Add a high level of calcium deposits to the plaque? That could mean a heart attack is in the works.

Calcifications are now considered one of the first warning signs of a possible heart attack within the next ten years, even in patients who have no other heart disease symptoms. Cardiologists are now using cardiac calcium computerized tomography (CT) scans to measure coronary calcium deposits in your arteries as an early predictor of heart disease. The higher the calcium score, the more evidence of coronary artery disease (CAD).[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row id="" class=" " style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; " visibility="" inner_container="true" marginless_columns="false" bg_color=""][cs_column id="" class="left-text " style="padding: 0px; border-style: solid; border-width: 2px; " bg_color="" fade="true" fade_animation="in-from-left" fade_animation_offset="45px" fade_duration="750" type="1/1"][cs_block_grid id="" class="mbn" style="" type="two-up"][cs_block_grid_item id="" class="" style="" title="Block Grid Item 1"]

Calcium Score

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Presence of CAD

[/cs_block_grid_item][/cs_block_grid][cs_text id="" class="mbn" style="" text_align="center-text"]*Table courtesy of RadiologyInfo.org[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row id="" class=" " style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; " visibility="" inner_container="true" marginless_columns="false" bg_color=""][cs_column id="" class="" style="padding: 0px; " bg_color="" fade="false" fade_animation="in" fade_animation_offset="45px" fade_duration="750" type="1/1"][cs_text id="" class="mtm" style="" text_align=""]Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and is the number one cause of sudden cardiac arrest. Each year, approximately 300,000 persons in the United States experience an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA).[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id="" class=" " style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " visibility="" parallax="false"][cs_row id="" class=" " style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; " visibility="" inner_container="true" marginless_columns="false" bg_color=""][cs_column id="" class="" style="padding: 0px; " bg_color="" fade="false" fade_animation="in" fade_animation_offset="45px" fade_duration="750" type="1/1"][x_custom_headline level="h2" looks_like="h4" accent="false" class="mtn"]Almost all of those who experience an OHCA event will die.[/x_custom_headline][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row id="" class=" " style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; " visibility="" inner_container="true" marginless_columns="false" bg_color=""][cs_column id="" class="" style="padding: 0px; " bg_color="" fade="false" fade_animation="in" fade_animation_offset="45px" fade_duration="750" type="2/3"][cs_text id="" class="" style="" text_align=""]Cardiologists are using cardiac calcium scans to detect and treat heart disease earlier to reduce the number of avoidable cardiovascular disease deaths. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that nearly 25% of all cardiovascular disease deaths are avoidable.

By treating heart disease earlier, physicians help patients avoid sudden cardiac arrest or heart attacks.

According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a cardiac calcium scan is a painless test that uses computerized tomography (CT) imaging to take pictures of your heart, including the specks of calcium that may be present in the walls of the arteries.

The scan is most useful in helping patients and their physicians decide if or when to begin heart disease treatment.[/cs_text][/cs_column][cs_column id="" class="left-text " style="padding: 10px 10px 0px; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; border-color: hsl(0, 93%, 47%); " bg_color="hsl(0, 2%, 92%)" fade="false" fade_animation="in" fade_animation_offset="45px" fade_duration="750" type="1/3"][cs_text id="" class="mbn" style="" text_align=""]CPR and Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) training is also helping to reduce the death rather from out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA).

Convenient AED and CPR training class schedules using gamification learning methods are some of the latest training trends.[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][cs_row id="" class=" " style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; " visibility="" inner_container="true" marginless_columns="false" bg_color=""][cs_column id="" class="" style="padding: 0px; " bg_color="" fade="false" fade_animation="in" fade_animation_offset="45px" fade_duration="750" type="1/1"][cs_text id="" class="mbn" style="" text_align=""]Although the US Preventive Task Force and the American College of Cardiology recommend against widespread use of the cardiac calcium scans in low-risk patients without heart disease symptoms, scans are recommended for low-risk adults who have a family history and intermediate risk adults who are not experiencing any symptoms. Why?[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][cs_section id="" class=" " style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; " visibility="" parallax="false"][cs_row id="" class=" " style="margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; " visibility="" inner_container="true" marginless_columns="false" bg_color=""][cs_column id="" class="" style="padding: 0px 0px 45px; " bg_color="" fade="false" fade_animation="in" fade_animation_offset="45px" fade_duration="750" type="1/1"][x_custom_headline level="h2" looks_like="h4" accent="false" class="mtn"]The coronary calcium score may shift patients into a lower (or higher) risk category and change the recommended treatment.[/x_custom_headline][cs_text id="" class="" style="" text_align=""]For example, your or a family member or friend may be in low to moderate risk (10-20%) of a heart attack in the next ten years with just one or two risk factors such as a family history of early cardiac disease onset and a history of smoking. (A quick online calculator for measuring and understanding your risk levels is available on the NHLBI website.) But your physician would like you to begin taking statin drugs to reduce blood cholesterol levels. Statin drugs are powerful and helpful drugs that can also carry negative side effects.

A cardiac calcium scan tests’ results can help you and your physician weigh the pros and cons of beginning a statin drug regimen. The scan results are also shown to help patients make the heart healthy lifestyle changes necessary to reduce risks. A picture is worth a thousand words!

Besides visiting your physician to determine your heart attack risk, and then following physician’s orders, you can take even more proactive steps to protect yourself and others from death due to sudden cardiac arrest. Find out more about heart attack symptoms here. And enroll your family in AED and CPR training to be prepared to help those who might experience sudden cardiac arrest outside the hospital.

See more about CPR and First Aid training classes available every week day in the San Diego area. These classes are certified by the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Health and Safety institute (AHSI).

Seventy percent of heat attacks that occur in the US each year as a first-time event. Don’t wait for that first heart attack to be your wake-up call to see your physician for a heart disease evaluation or to be trained in CPR and AED use. That wake-up call could be your last.[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section]