Stress is the ‘silent killer’, London Heart Unit offers latest cardiac diagnostics

Intriguing data published in November 2009 suggests that “stress” is an important factor in the development of silent heart disease. Professor Avijit Lahiri, founder of the Cardiac Imaging and Research Trust, has written an article for totalhealth that explains all the latest trial data in cardiology, what it means and the best way to get any heart disease properly diagnosed.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) remains the leading cause of death in the United Kingdom, killing approx 90,000 people every year, it is also the most important factor contributing to the number of years of life lost before the age of 65.

There have been tremendous improvements in our knowledge of the underlying process of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but unfortunately 30%  of people who have  a heart attack don’t survive therefore early detection is critically important.  Early detection is confounded by the fact that almost 80% of the patients have had “silent” heart disease for many years.

The Latest in Cardiac Diagnostics

The technology in this area is changing rapidly and so far The Cardiac Imaging Centre (CIRC) is only centre in London with the latest scanners that are currently acknowledged to be the state-of-the-art requirements for efficient, accurate and early diagnosis of heart disease.

For those people interested in the technology, the scanners are called:

Dual-source ultra-fast CT scanner (Definition), combined with the hybrid CT+Gamma Camera (SPECT-CT) (Symbia T6), 4D- Echocardiography.

This is now generally acknowledged as the latest state-of-the-art technology for diagnosing heart disease.

For a full description, please see Diagnosing and Treating Heart Disease.