When to consider a heart artery blockage screening

Associate Consultant Dr Wang Luo-Kai:
There is a certain scenario whereby we do screening for coronary artery calcium. These are only more suitable in patients who are in intermediate risk group. Let’s say you are between 10-20% risk of Cardiovascular disease (CVD), and we are not too sure whether to start you on cholesterol medicine, then this is the time where we can do the calcium score. And if the calcium score is high, we manage accordingly. Sometimes we may start statins or aspirin. This applies to the asymptomatic group who have no symptoms. If you have symptoms, we will assess your risk of having a blockage and do the necessary. We have all the required modalities of imaging in National Heart Centre to give an assessment of whether or not you have heart blockage. Unless you are symptomatic, there is no need for any screening for heart artery blockage

Clinical Associate Professor Tan Swee Yaw:
This question is also patient specific because everyone is different. If you have a family history of sudden death, or your father or mother had a heart attack at 35 years old, pr there’s diabetes in your family at a very young age, there will be different tests requests so it is very difficult to have a generic screening for everyone. A lot of these tests also come with downside. The radiation dose was sometimes as high as 1000 chest x-rays. It is much less now. So if it is not necessary, don’t expose yourself to unnecessary radiation risks.