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Advocates Say Scanner Is Useful in Predicting Heart Disease
La Jolla-based HealthScan doesn’t expect its business to be hurt by a recent American Heart Association report that questions the mass screening of healthy adults for heart disease.
HealthScan officials said its heart scanning technology, called electron beam computed tomography, or EBT scanning, is a life-saving technology whose usefulness to the masses has simply been misunderstood.
EBT scanning is a quick, non-invasive procedure that can detect calcium deposits in coronary arteries. It uses beams of electrons to create crisp images of the coronary arteries to determine how much calcium they contain.
According to Richard King, CEO of HealthScan, “Any signs of calcification is an indicator of early-stage heart disease.” Patients pay $495 per test to find out whether they are at risk.
In the July 2000 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, experts from the college and the American Heart Association agreed the test is useful in certain situations. However, most of the experts did not recommend it for mass screening.
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