Free
E-newsletter
Subscribe to Housecall
Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date
on a wide variety of health topics.
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
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 can show that you may 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, be cautious of these offers.
The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology don't recommend routine use of heart scans on people who don't have symptoms of heart disease and who don't smoke or have cardiac risk factors, such as elevated cholesterol or high blood pressure.
- American Heart Association position statement on state efforts to mandate coronary arterial calcification and carotid intima media thickness screenings among asymptomatic adults. American Heart Association. http://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/.../ucm_437479.pdf. Accessed March 12, 2013.
- Greenland P, et al. 2010 ACCF/AHA guideline for assessment of cardiovascular risk in asymptomatic adults. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2010;56:e50.
- Whelton WP, et al. Coronary artery calcium and primary prevention risk assessment: What is the evidence? An updated meta-analysis on patient and physician behavior. Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. 2012;5:601.
- What is a coronary calcium scan? National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/cscan/cscan_all.html. Accessed March 12, 2013.
- Yeboah J, et al. Comparison of novel risk markers for improvement in cardiovascular risk assessment in intermediate-risk individuals. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2012;308:788.
- Youssef G, et al. Coronary calcium: New insights, recent data and clinical role. Current Cardiology Reports. 2013;15:325.
- Rozanski A, et al. Impact of coronary artery calcium scanning on coronary risk factors and downstream testing. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 2011;57:1622.
- Nasir K, et al. Coronary calcium scanning should be used for primary prevention. JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging. 2012;5:111.
- Blaha MJ, et al. Associations between C-reactive protein, coronary artery calcium, and cardiovascular events: implications for the JUPITER population from MESA, a population-based cohort study. Lancet. 2011;378:684.
- Heart disease fact sheet. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control. http://www.cdc.gov/dhdsp/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fs_heart_disease.htm. Accessed March 12, 2013.
- Gerber TC, et al. Diagnostic and prognostic implications of coronary artery calcification detected by computed tomography. http://www.uptodate.com/home. Accessed April 9, 2013.
- Reinsch N, et al. Comparison of dual-source and clectron-beam CT for assessment of coronary artery calcium scoring. British Journal of Radiology. 2012;85:e300.
Find Mayo Clinic on