CT scans replacing treadmill stress test.

Publication: South Florida Sun-Sentinel (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service)

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COPYRIGHT 2005 South Florida Sun-Sentinal

Byline: Bob Lamendola

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ The familiar treadmill stress test that has diagnosed heart disease in millions of Americans is being made obsolete by the computer age.

A new generation of X-ray CT scans that appeared in the past two years can detect clogged heart arteries more accurately than older methods, doctors say, and can detect the most lethal types of blockages, which don't show up on stress tests.

In addition, some CT specialists contend that the new computed tomography scan is as powerful as the angiogram, currently the prime tool for finding clogged arteries but one that is invasive and can cause complications.

"CT is better than anything we have now that is non-invasive," said Dr. Michael Yue-Hua Shen, a heart imaging specialist at the Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Fla. "This is where we're going in the future."

Since 2001, when CT scans were improved to the point that they could make clear images of the heart, the number of cardiac CTs has climbed to more than one million per year nationwide _ and is rising _ compared to 10 million stress tests and 2.2 million angiograms.

Doctors are regularly using CT scans to assess patients' blockages to more accurately...

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