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Posted on Sunday September 22, 2024 in Health Screening
Caristo is a commercial data processing company that uses their algorithms to quantity coronary inflammation from a contrast coronary CT angiogram. The company uses their proprietary software to define their CaRi Hearts score which, over and above traditional risk factors such as cholesterol LDL, HDL, diabetes, blood pressure and standard CT markers such as CAC and plaque, appears to predict cardiovascular mortality within 8 years. This technology has a CE mark and has been widely published for example: Inflammatory risk and cardiovascular events in patients without obstructive coronary artery disease: the ORFAN multicentre, longitudinal cohort study Lancet 2024
In Sept 2024 Caristo announced a promotion for World Heart Day, offering £500 cashback to the first 100 successful applicants – from patients in the UK undergoing CTCA with FAI between 28th Sept and 15th Oct 2024.
The terms and conditions can be found at https://www.scvc.co.uk/news/promotions-and-discount-schemes/
According to Caristo’s competition rules, self funding patients already referred by their cardiologist for CTCA with AI (FAI or CaRi heart score) that takes place between 28/9/24 and 15/10/24 are eligible. So who else might be?
Due to the potential hazards of Ionising radiation and laws protecting people from inappropriate or overzealous use of X-ray testing, such as CT scans, it is not possible for patients to access this competition without a medical referral for a CT scan, which must be appropriate and justifiable under IRMER regulations.
In a non-symptomatic patient, a CT cannot generally be justified unless the results would alter management. However in over half of all patients affected by coronary heart disease, the first symptom is a heart attack or sudden death. There is increasing evidence that early detection of coronary plaque and inflammation, with initiation of prevention measures, may be the only way to beat the high mortality of coronary heart disease, particularly in those aged 40-70 years of age. Cardiologists are therefore increasingly using CTCA FAI to gauge future risk in their patients with risk factors, even those without symptoms.
If you are an existing patient that has received a recommendation by your cardiologist to have a CTCA with FAI data processing, then you should be eligible – just get in touch with the team at SCVC with the completed referral form.
If you are NOT already referred for CTCA and interested in this technology you may also wish to enter the competition. In these cases, although the timing will be tight given the demand and deadlines, there may be time to take advantage of this amazing giveaway. Use SCVCs free pre-consultation process., where we collect your personal circumstances and risk factors (such as age, gender, family history, cholesterol profile) which are passed to one of our cardiologists, who can then decide whether a CT scan is justifiable, and if so, a referral for the CTCA with FAI can then be made without a formal consultation.
Please note that a cardiologist will be unlikely to refer a patient who has already had a CT contrast coronary scan in the last year for this test.
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