New Findings May Help Identify Plaques in Heart Arteries Most Prone to Rupture

New Findings May Help Identify Plaques in Heart Arteries Most Prone to Rupture and to Cause Heart Attack or Sudden Cardiac Death

ATLANTA (September 28, 2009) - Heart doctors have known that certain plaques in the small arteries that feed the heart muscle - coronary arteries - can rupture and cause significant events such as heart attack or sudden cardiac death.  The difficulty is being able to predict which of the plaques in an artery are most prone to rupture.  An analogy that would be similar to trying to predict which of many volcanoes would be the most prone to explode.

Heart doctors gathered at the Transcatheter Therapeutic meeting held in San Francisco this week released the results from the Predictors of Response to Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (PROSPECT) trial.  The trial showed sophisticated techniques which not only can look inside the small arteries but also determine the make up and the size of the plaques, and found that certain characteristics of the plaques denoted a population who in the future might be at high risk for developing major cardiac events.  These findings were based upon the use of intracoronary ultrasound as well as a way to measure the makeup of the plaques this is called virtual histology.

Doctors at Piedmont Heart Institute have participated in the PROSPECT trial and similar research whereby low-radiation CT scanning can non-invasively detect not only the presence of the plaques, but certain features of the plaques that might denote those plaques most likely to rupture, and hence to cause patients significant cardiac events.

And why is this important?  If one thinks about the case of celebrated news reporter Tim Russert, his sudden cardiac death highlights the fact that knowing a patient has a plaque that might be prone to rupture could lead to appropriate intervention be it medical or otherwise.

For further information, or to speak with physicians at Piedmont Heart Institute, contact 404-367-2752.

About Piedmont Heart Institute

Piedmont Heart Institute (PHI) is the first integrated cardiovascular healthcare delivery program affiliated with a community health system in greater Atlanta and is headquartered on the campus of Piedmont Hospital, a 481-bed tertiary care facility offering all major medical, surgical and diagnostic services. Piedmont Hospital was named Best in Atlanta for Overall Cardiac Care and Cardiac Surgery (2008 and 2009) by HealthGrades^®, and in particular, received the 2009 Cardiac Surgery Excellence Award, placing the hospital's clinical outcomes in the top 10 percent nationally.  In addition, Piedmont Hospital also received five-star ratings for Coronary Bypass Surgery, Treatment of Heart Attack and Treatment of Heart Failure, placing it among the top five hospitals in Georgia for cardiac surgery, cardiology and overall cardiac services. Offering a continuum of patient care, including primary and secondary prevention, outpatient and inpatient cardiovascular care, and appropriate quality measures and metrics to demonstrate enhanced outcomes, Piedmont Heart Institute combines more than 70 cardiovascular specialists in the Piedmont Heart Institute Physicians with more than 30 offices across north Georgia, and the 162-bed Fuqua Heart Center of Atlanta at Piedmont Hospital to propel new programs in cardiovascular research, education and excellence in prevention, arrhythmias, coronary and vascular intervention, cardiac surgery, stroke and cardiac imaging. Piedmont Heart Institute is part of Piedmont Healthcare (PHC), a not-for-profit organization that also includes Piedmont Fayette Hospital, a 143-bed, acute-care community hospital in Fayetteville; Piedmont Mountainside Hospital, a 42-bed community hospital in Jasper; and Piedmont Newnan Hospital, a 143-bed, acute-care community hospital in Newnan. Piedmont Healthcare also is the parent company of Piedmont Philanthropy, the philanthropic entity for private fundraising initiatives; the Piedmont Physicians Group, with over 100 primary care physicians in over 30 offices throughout metro Atlanta; and the Piedmont Clinic, a 600-member physician network. For more information, visit piedmontheart.org.