The services and allowed charges by cardiologists for treating Medicare patients increased dramatically between 1999 and 2008, according to an analysis published online Jan. 10 in
Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Much of the growth was linked to noninvasive imaging, with resting echocardiograms and nuclear stress testing fueling the lion’s share of growth.
Applying cardiac CT to the evaluation of patients who present to the emergency department (ED) with chest pain at low to intermediate risk of acute coronary syndrome saved money in both the initial diagnosis and over a one-year period, according to a decision analytic model published in the January issue of Academic Radiology.
Sixty-four slice coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) has a negative predictive value of more than 99 percent in excluding major adverse cardiac events for 30 days in patients who present with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) symptoms, according to a study published in the December issue of Academic Radiology.
DENVER—In the current era of nuclear stress testing, a major debate is whether pharmalogical stress testing is comparable with exercise testing. During a presentation Sept. 11 at the 16th annual American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) scientific sessions, Brian G. Abbott, MD, medical director of nuclear cardiology at the Rhode Island Cardiology Center in Providence, R.I., said yes, particularly for diagnosing coronary artery disease.
Researchers have developed and validated a weighted scoring system that incorporates patient- and scan-related factors to predict pre-coronary CT angiography (CCTA) risk of an uninterpretable result in symptomatic patients, according to a study published online July 26 in
Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging.
