Health: How To Predict a Heart Attack
By Stephanie Stahl
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Heart disease can be a silent killer. Often you don't know you're at risk until it is too late. Now there's a new non-invasive heart attack predictor.
It happens almost a million times a year. Someone suffers a heart attack, often with little or no warning.
"We see that 50 percent of patients that walk to the emergency room with a heart attack have no known conventional risk factors, so their first symptom is sudden death," said Dr. Sivan Ebril, with Itamar Medical Inc.
Edward Murphy doesn't have any symptoms, but he wants to know whether he's headed down the wrong path.
"I think it's time to start checking and keeping an eye on things. Cause I think, you know, I heard after 50 everything goes downhill," said Edward.
He got a test called the EndoPAT. It's like a cardiac time machine with a blood pressure cuff on one arm, and biosensors on both index fingers. It disrupts normal circulation to see how the vessels in the fingers react, in just 15 minutes. The linking of those vessels, known as the endothelium, can reveal important clues about coronary arteries.
"The endothelium in the brachial artery of the arm is the same endothelium that's in the heart. And studies have shown that when that's abnormal, the ones in the heart are abnormal," said Dr. Steven Reisman, a Cardiologist.
The EndoPat gives each patient a simple score that's easy to understand; a calculation risk for a heart attack or stroke. It could provide an early warning so people can try to reverse their fate.
"Let's say you are tested today and you are taking some statins, but still your test result was not that good. It will give your physician another indication to change your regiment of treatment," said Dr. Ebril.
The maker says the FDA approved test can give someone up to a seven year warning of potential trouble.
For more information visit: www.itamar-medical.com/EndoPAT.
