February is American Heart Month and AMI is supporting the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign. Heart disease, the #1 killer of women, affects women from all age groups, ethnicities, family histories and walks of life. Awareness, education and research are the keys to change.
On Friday, February 5, 2021, the physicians and staff at AMI joined millions of Americans and wore red to show support for women and the fight against heart disease. The AMI Foundation will donate funds raised through our Go Red for Women campaign to support heart health research and education.
Heart disease is a condition that progresses gradually and is primarily caused by lifestyle choices that do not support heart health. With a bad diet and lack of exercise, the inner walls of your arteries will accumulate a substance called artery plaque. This plaque can narrow the arteries and impede blood flow. Patients with dangerous amounts of artery plaque are considered to have a condition called atherosclerosis.
A remarkable technology called Coronary CT Angiography (CTA) can provide the earliest possible evidence of developing coronary artery disease. This non-invasive exam requires no sedation and no hospital stay. The CT scanner completes a specialized CT scan in fewer than five heartbeats, and then within seconds uses highly advanced computers to produced 3-D, 360-degree images of the coronary arteries, the place where heart attacks originate.
A Coronary CTA scan can discover signs of heart disease that would be invisible on EKGs, stress testing, calcium scoring, and even cardiac catheterization. Coronary CTA is the only non-invasive diagnostic test that detects calcified and more importantly non-calcified (soft or vulnerable) plaques. It is these soft plaques, invisible to the calcium scoring that are more likely to cause heart attacks and sudden death.
If you or a loved one have one or more of the following risk factors, you should talk with your physician:
- High Blood Pressure
- High Cholesterol
- High Stress Environment
- Smoking
- Family History of Heart Disease
- Diabetes
- Overweight
- Sedentary Lifestyle (little or no exercise)
In 2004, the AMI Foundation of Atlantic Medical Imaging formed the William J. Reilly Coronary CTA Fund. The fund provides free or low cost Coronary CTA exams to patients at risk for heart disease based on eligibility.
For more information about Coronary CTA, please call (609) 677-XRAY (9729), (732) 223-XRAY (9729), 856-794-1700 or visit our website at: www.atlanticmedicalimaging.com/radiology-services/coronary-cta/