SignOnSanDiego.com > Latest scanning device finds heart disease, and controversy, quickly [CLICK 4 MORE]
"
Coming soon to a medical center near you: a much-anticipated but controversial X-ray machine that can detect heart disease in five seconds.

Although the 64-slice CT scanner can be used to see other parts of the body, its most talked-about ability is to detect blockages in coronary arteries.

Highly precise, 3-D images show if a patient's symptoms, such as chest pain, are caused by heart disease and require an invasive procedure such as catheterization to correct.
Cardiologists say that the machine is not as reliable for someone with previously treated heart disease. The better option in those cases is to go straight to catheterization, they advise.

Limitations aside, doctors rave about how quickly the scanner can rule out serious cardiac complications.

More than 1,000 of the machines have been installed worldwide since their rollout two years ago. They got a celebrity boost when Oprah Winfrey underwent a cardiac check with the device on her TV talk show last year.

“Ever since Oprah, I've been bombarded by physicians in other parts of the country (and) even from Japan, France and Saudi Arabia” who want their patients to be scanned, said Dr. John Hauschildt of Rady Children's Hospital in Kearny Mesa, the first facility in the county to get the 64-slice CT scanner.

The machine is not without its critics. Some cardiologists worry that it will be overused, exposing people who have no symptoms or risk factors for heart.....