Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common type of heart disease – approximately 13 million Americans are living with CAD. It’s also the leading cause of death in the U.S. in both men and women. In fact, every year more than 500,000 Americans die of heart attacks or other complications associated with CAD.
CAD usually develops over the course of several years as cholesterol-containing deposits (plaques) build up – atherosclerosis – narrowing the coronary arteries. This can eventually weaken the heart muscle, causing heart failure or an arrhythmia. Unfortunately, CAD often goes undetected until it produces a heart attack. That’s why it’s important to diagnose and treat the condition in its earliest stages.
In the event of a heart attack, the Heart Team at SLU Hospital utilizes an integrated, fast-track approach that facilitates rapid diagnosis and treatment of this condition. We work in partnership with our dedicated emergency medicine colleagues in the emergency department to diagnose patients and provide a specific treatment strategy that can be employed to limit the damage that a patient suffers when they are having a heart attack. Most patients are quickly brought to the catheterization lab, where they receive state-of-the art care in our cardiac intensive care and telemetry units to make sure that their recovery is as fast as possible.
The Heart Team at SLU Hospital specializes in assessing a patient’s risk for CAD to determine if further testing is necessary. For patients diagnosed with CAD, the team may prescribe certain medications to manage risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, an irregular heartbeat, and low blood flow. In some cases, more advanced treatments or surgical procedures – stents or bypass surgery – may be necessary to help restore blood flow to the heart.
The diagnosis and treatment for CAD utilizes the cardiac catheterization lab. The J. Gerard Mudd Cardiac Catheterization lab in Saint Louis University Hospital was the first such lab built in the U.S., west of the Mississippi River. We continue to employ this cutting-edge expertise to diagnose and treat CAD today, using advanced technologies such as catheter-based heart pumps, catheters that image cholesterol content within the artery, and catheters that perform a “CT scan” of the artery from the inside. Utilizing these and other technologies, the Heart Team at SLU Hospital provides catheterization procedures to keep a patient at the lowest possible risk for a future heart attack.