Study will use CT technology to look at heart disease

MURRAY — With advanced CT imaging, signs of coronary artery disease can be detected very early, before clogged arteries create symptoms. But once you find it, do you treat it aggressively or wait?

The field of medicine, big on guidelines, simply doesn't know.

Cardiologists, radiologists and others at Intermountain Medical Center and LDS Hospital have launched a study to answer those questions, using 64-slice CT technology to screen people with diabetes — a known risk factor for heart disease — for the earliest signs of the disease. When it's found, patients will be treated to try to head off heart attacks, strokes and death.

Principal investigator Dr. J. Brent Muhlestein, director of cardiac research at IMC, says the goal is to see if early detection and treatment prolongs life and improves its quality.

On Wednesday, they announced the two-year, 1,100-patient study that will weigh the benefits and risks of early screening and treatment. Men over 50 and women over 55 with diabetes but no known heart disease will be randomly assigned to CT screening or none. Intermountain Healthcare will absorb the cost of the CT.

Gary Steadman, a retired aerospace engineer from Tooele, was one of the first study participants. At 72, he had no clue he had heart disease. But within days of the CT, he underwent triple-bypass surgery. He recently returned from a trip to Israel, planned before he enrolled in the study. He believes the trip, which included a lot of walking and activity, could have ended tragically had he not been screened and his disease handled.

In fact, many of the 150 study participants already screened have been diagnosed with asymptomatic heart disease and treated, Muhlestein said.

"By the time there are symptoms, the disease is advanced. We know with a CT we can image a heart in a way never possible before," said Dr. Christopher McGann, cardiologist at LDS Hospital. "It's a powerful tool to detect coronary artery disease at an early stage. Now we need to decide if picking it up early can change outcomes."

He said if this study proves the value, it's likely research will move on to assess populations that do not have diabetes.