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Definition
By Mayo Clinic staffHeart scans, also known as coronary calcium scans, provide pictures of your heart's arteries (coronary arteries). Doctors use heart scans to look for calcium deposits in the coronary arteries that can narrow your arteries and increase your heart attack risk. The result of this test is often called a coronary calcium score.
Heart scans may show that you have a higher risk of having a heart attack or other problems before you have any obvious symptoms of heart disease. Heart scans aren't for everyone, though. While some walk-in medical facilities advertise that you can walk in for a quick check of your coronary arteries, you should be cautious of these approaches.
Routine use of heart scans on people who don't have any symptoms of heart disease is not recommended by the American Heart Association or the American College of Cardiology.
- Greenland P, et al. ACCF/AHA 2007 clinical expert consensus document on coronary artery calcium scoring by computed tomography in global cardiovascular risk assessment and in evaluation of patients with chest pain. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2007;49:378.
- Screening for coronary heart disease: Recommendation statement. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/uspstf/uspsacad.htm. Accessed Aug. 10, 2010.
- Coronary calcium scan. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/cscan/cscan_all.html. Accessed Aug. 10, 2010.
- Bonow RO. Should coronary calcium screening be used in cardiovascular prevention strategies? New England Journal of Medicine. 2009;361:990.
- Nieman K, et al. Comparison of the value of coronary calcium detection to computed tomographic angiography and exercise testing in patients with chest pain. The American Journal of Cardiology. 2009;104:1499.
- Shaw LJ, et al. Induced cardiovascular procedural costs and resource consumption patterns after coronary artery calcium screening. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2010;54:1258.
- Cademartiri F, et al. Coronary calcium score and computed tomography coronary angiography in high-risk asymptomatic subjects: Assessment of diagnostic accuracy and prevalence of non-obstructive coronary artery disease. European Radiology. 2010;20:846.
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