A heart scan sometimes called a coronary calcium scan is a specialist X-ray exam that produces images of your heart that can help your doctor find and quantify calcium-containing plaque in your arteries.
Every patient deserves access to economical healthcare, hence private heart scan in the UK offer a particular heart screening service to the public for a week.
Why A Heart Scan Is Done?
To better understand your risk of heart disease or if the course of your therapy is unclear, your doctor may request a heart scan. The people who have a known “moderate” risk of heart disease or whose risk is unknown are thought to benefit from heart scans the most. Your age, sex, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and usage of cigarettes can all be used to determine your risk for heart disease. Many people prefer private heart scans.
Advantages And Disadvantages Of Heart Scans
Advantages
- Surgery might not be required thanks to the heart and vascular CT angiography. Surgery can be done more precisely if it’s still required.
- In small blood arteries, CT angiography may provide more exact anatomical detail than other imaging techniques. It can also detect blood artery narrowing and occlusion, allowing for the possibility of therapy.
- The X-rays used in conventional CT scans have no immediate negative effects and no radiation is left in the body of the patient after heart and vascular CT angiography.
Disadvantages
- Radiation overexposure always carries a small risk of developing cancer. However, the advantages of a correct diagnosis usually outweigh the disadvantages.
- Giving iodinated contrast material to patients who already have renal functions that are on the verge of being borderline or at risk for kidney failure could potentially worsen their condition.
- If there is even the slightest chance that a woman is pregnant, she should always let the SMIL radiologist know.
Results
You shouldn’t use the outcome of a heart scan as the only indicator of your general health and risk of heart disease. A cardiac scan’s results should be supplemented with other medical data.
