"How often do you call an ambulance?"

I asked one of the CT technologists at Milwaukee Heart Scan what quesetions are often asked by people undergoing their first CT heart scan.

"That's easy," she said. " 'How often do you call an ambulance?' "

She went on. "People are very scared when they have their heart scan. In fact, some people don't even want to see their heart scan images and don't want to know their score--even after they paid $200 for the scan!"

I think she's right. People often remember the headlines that some heart scan centers have used: "Heart scan saved so and so's life!," when a high score led to a heart catheterization, stents, or bypass surgery. It's the sort of headline that gives people the impression that ambulances pull up to the scan center whenever a score is high.

So, how often is an ambulance called to the scan center? Never. Not once. A CT heart scan score is NEVER an emergency.

Emergencies occur in other places when people can't breathe, or are having pain in their chest, or pass out, emergencies that should not take anyone to a heart scan center. When heart scans are used properly, it is the person without symptoms who undergoes a scan to look for hidden heart disease. This cannot lead to an emergency.

Of course, that doesn't mean that a high score shouldn't prompt quick action in the next few days or weeks, like seeing your doctor to discuss the results, undergoing a stress test, discussing how to stop the score from progressing.

But call an ambulance? Forget about it.

If you are contemplating a scan but are scared that it could lead to a 911 call, don't let that stop you. But, in the event that you go to an unscrupulous center or get bad information, be sure to be armed with the best information possible. One good start would be to take look at our free downloadable book, What does my heart scan show? available for free on the www.cureality.com website.

Comments (1) -

  • Anonymous

    11/27/2008 1:51:00 AM |

    Thats funny Dr. At the Torrance CA location for the scan, they are doing a two for one in Feb so hubby and I will go for it. I am scared however.

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Heart scan curiosities 2

Heart scan curiosities 2



This is an example of a so-called "hiatal hernia", meaning the stomach has migrated through the diaphragmatic hiatus into the chest--the stomach is literally in the chest. This example is an unusually large one. Hiatal hernias can cause chest pain, indigestion, and a variety of other gastrointestinal complaints. Heart scans are reasonably useful to screen for this disorder, though very small ones could escape detection by this method.

Sometimes, you can actually hear the gurgling of stomach contents (the common "growling" stomach) by listening to the chest. Large ones like this actually crowd your heart (the gray structure above the circled hernia), irritating it and even causing abnormal rhythm disorders. The dense dark material within the hernia represents lunch.

I would not advocate CT heart scans as a principal method to make a diagnosis, but sometimes it just pops up during a heart scan and we pass it on to the person scanned.

Comments (2) -

  • Anonymous

    8/2/2007 5:42:00 PM |

    Awesome, just awesome.Brilliant blog that has helped me ALOT so I am eternally grateful. Phil

  • Anonymous

    10/4/2007 2:01:00 AM |

    I just had a heart scan. 44 year old female with family history of heart disease.  Both parents in 40's with heart attacks/by-pass surgery...My cardiologist ask if I had ever been diagnosed with a hiatal hernia and the scan looked somewhat like the one you show.  It looked like I had one Big Heart!  He told me to follow-up with my PCP.  I did, he is new for me and not sure I see eye-to-eye with him, but he insist a hernia can not show up on a heart scan, I told him, I saw it, I saw the scan, I saw the white circle...I have had GERD for 5-6 years now, nausea almost every morning on top of the reflux in the morning and my family always complain how long it takes me to eat! Guess what, I'm having an upper GI in the morning.  Thanks for this information...I thought maybe I was loosing my mind!

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