Been looking to get one of those calcium scores and found a close place. Emailed them and got the following back.
Is it a good price and is there some other testing mechanism that'll give me a calcium score for less?
Here is what I got emailed back:
*strong text*The Heart Scan is $495
Heart Scan / Electron Bean Tomography (EBT)
Research has shown the ViaScan heart scan to be the only proven method to detect early coronary disease in otherwise healthy (asymptomatic) people. The heart scan is read and interpreted by a board-certified radiologist who will calculate your calcium score - a measurement of calcified plaque within the heart and coronary arteries. The higher the calcium score, the greater the likelihood of a future coronary "event" such as a heart attack or the need for angioplasty, stents or bypass surgery.
According to the American Heart Association, the calcium score generated by the ViaScan is "the most powerful predictor" of future coronary events in apparently healthy people. The Wall Street Journal listed the ViaScan EBT heart scan as one of the "Five Tests Worth Paying For."
For the first time in EBT cardiovascular preventive history, plaque can be seen as small as 1 millimeter in size years or decades before substantial build up develops that results in heart attack or surgery. This enable you and your health care provider to take a proactive approach to your cardiovascular health.
If plaque is detected, then an iodine contrast is injected and a virtual angiogram enables you to see the degree of plaque blockage with accurate imaging. With ViaScan, you can see the plaque in the arteries before your options are limited to stents (70% Over the last couple of decades, other methods have been developed as ways to better detect atherosclerotic disease before it becomes symptomatic. These have included both (a) anatomic detection methods and (b) physiologic measurement methods.
Examples of anatomic methods include: (1) coronary calcium scoring by computed tomography, (2) carotid IMT (intimal medial thickness) measurement by ultrasound, e.g. IntiMaTe, and (3) IVUS. [source www.wikipedia.com]
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Via Scan 972-739-2840 offices 850-293-4576 cell
