A new study, released by the American Heart Association, projects that by 2035, cardiovascular disease (CVD), the most costly and prevalent killer, if left unchecked, will place a crushing economic and health burden on the nation’s financial and health care systems. According to the study, in the next two decades, the number of Americans with CVD will rise to 131.2 million – 45 percent of the total U.S. population – with costs expected to reach $1.1 trillion.
The CIMT (Carotid Intima Media Thickness) test gives doctors the ability to provide a test for detection of atherosclerosis and risk for a myocardial infarction or stroke at its most earliest stages. It can be done in the doctor’s office and empowers patients to completely comprehend the condition of their cardiovascular health. The test motivates and inspires them to take the steps and follow the doctor’s programs to keep up a sound heart.
Screening for early-stage asymptomatic cancers to prevent late-stage malignancies has been generally acknowledged. Be that as it may, although atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (e.g. heart attack and stroke) accounts for more death and disability than all cancers combined, little has been accomplished for screening asymptomatic patients for cardiovascular disease.
Early detection of cardiovascular disease allows prevention of acute events and reduces the suffering from the subsequent morbidity of such events. It permits doctors to ensure that they are optimizing patient treatment based on actual pathology that may be observed through vascular imaging that looks at the actual state of disease, not just risk factors for disease.
The CIMT test quantifies an individual’s risk for a cardiovascular event with a fast, inexpensive and accurate test that will provide the doctor with the most complete picture of the patient’s vascular well-being.
CIMT is a new noninvasive ultrasound test that is being recommended by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology to screen for heart disease in apparently healthy individuals ages 45 or greater. CIMT stands for Carotid Intima-Media Thickness. This is a noninvasive test which is performed with a high-resolution B-mode ultrasound transducer. The test is safe, painless and takes about ten minutes. After applying conducting jelly to the skin over your neck, a small hand-held transducer is applied to image the carotid arteries. The sonographer measures the combined thicknesses of the intimal and medial layers of the carotid artery walls. The test also prepares a report that compares your results with others of your age and gender to give you an idea of how old your arteries are, regardless of your chronological age.
The carotid arteries in the neck provides a “window” to the coronary arteries. Not only do they have similar risk factors – more importantly, the relationship between the atherosclerotic burden in a carotid artery and a coronary artery is the same as between any two coronary arteries. Thus carotid atherosclerosis provides a window to the degree of coronary atherosclerosis in an individual. CIMT is an independent predictor of future cardiovascular events, including heart attacks, cardiac death, and stroke.
Early detection may indicate the need for a more aggressive approach to managing the risk factors associated with heart disease and stroke.
Aging is a contributing factor to increased carotid intima-media thickness. Other risk factors include high lipoprotein levels, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, obesity, high stress, low Vitamin D and a sedentary lifestyle.
The use of carotid IMT measurement has markedly increased in the past decade because of its easy accessibility, high reproducibility and wide clinical, epidemiological
and research applications. It has predictive value for cardiovascular events, and can be used to evaluate the therapeutic effect of drug therapy on atherosclerosis progression.
It also has value in risk stratification in perioperative patients.
Knowing that patients may not be experiencing the symptoms of atherosclerosis, there still may be subtle changes in artery thickness. Armed with this information, physicians may develop an aggressive medical approach by prescribing medications such blood pressure and cholesterol lowering agents and aspirin, and patients may be encouraged make lifestyle and dietary improvements
Is your heart healthy? Find out with a CIMT screening and learn how this 10-minute, state of the art cardiovascular test could save your life.
It is normal for the walls of your arteries to thicken with age. Published studies of Carotid IMT measurements on thousands of patients have made it possible to develop a reference range of what is normal at different ages. Measuring the IMT enables us to compare your results to a very large population database and give us a relative age of your arteries. By comparing the current thickness of the walls with the thickness that would be normal for your age, this value can be translated into a vascular age. If your arteries are “older” than you are, your risk of heart attack is higher than it should be. For example, Carotid -IMT can tell a 45-year-old patient that he or she has the arteries of a 60-year-old, that sends a very different message than saying the arteries look like those of a 60-year-old.
If your cardiovascular age exceeds your chronological age, then it alerts your healthcare team to be more aggressive at controlling those risk factors associated with heart disease and stroke. More importantly, with various therapies, it is possible to achieve regression or slow down progression of the Carotid IMT. A follow-up Carotid IMT is done 6 to 18 months after therapy is initiated to evaluate the effectiveness of that heart therapy.
This CIMT test can also be used to follow the success of preventive therapy in patients with known cardiovascular disease.
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