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Cardiovascular diseases can be predicted with angiography and stress test, that can sometimes put patients at risk. The latest research on noninvasive CT angiography and CT stress tests can aid in predicting a heart attack. This new procedure is a safer, more affordable, and as equally effective as the traditional procedures can help prevent a future heart attack.

Heart ailments can be addressed through a bypass surgery or stent placement, most especially for patients who experience arterial narrowing or stenosis. However, most heart attacks are unpredictable, making these interventions useless. With Noninvasive CT angiography, it is now possible to see significant blood pressure drops in the heart's coronial arteries, prevent its narrowing and intervene a potential heart attack, the Science Daily cited.

The traditional procedure for predicting a heart attack is made up of a combination of invasive coronary angiography (ICA) and a stress test conducted with a single photo emission tomography or SPECT myocardial imaging. This has been the highest standard used in determining blockages.

However, this procedure will require a catheter that will be threaded from a puncture point in the groin and will go all the way up to the heart. This procedure is safe but can trigger vascular problems in patients most commonly on the site of the puncture. It can even trigger strokes and heart attacks.

The Medical Xpress previously reported about a new test for predicting heart attacks. This procedure will check the concentrations of the lipid ceramides in the blood of the patient. This predictive process is conducted outside the US and managed to predict heart attack for people with no arterial blockages.

However, the noninvasive CT angiography method used a combination of CT angiography and CT myocardial stress perfusion imaging. Although this technique is as equally efficient as the traditional method, it did not come with the possible adverse effects that the traditional procedure had. Experts believe that the noninvasive method should be preferred over the traditional procedure in predicting a heart attack because of its effectiveness, it is safer and cheaper than the invasive procedure and patients like it better.

Although obstacles are still preventing the noninvasive approach for predicting heart attacks, such as the lack of reimbursement codes for stress CT perfusion, researchers involved in the study advice the use of such method. The study further revealed that this technique is relatively easy to incorporate into the existing practices in cardiovascular treatments.