By Mathew Pereira
Sports Editor
matt@sph.com.sg

 

AFTER a good friend suffered a massive cardiac arrest a few years ago, I had a heart- to-heart talk with him and decided to get a computed tomography scan -- or CT scan - done.

This fascinating test uses x-rays and computers to create detailed slices of your body part which allows doctors to see diseased arteries without having to do a more invasive angiogram.

What left me really pleased was the result of the scan. Like an army sergeant who had just looked through a recruit's rifle barrel, the cardiologist looked at the image of my heart and said - "Your arteries are perfectly clear."

I have been sleeping easy since. A strained chest muscle, a tight overworked tendon at the arm, a pulled upper back muscle, all these I no longer perversely interpreted as indications that a heart attack was imminent. It was for these two reasons - knowing the state of your heart and the peace of mind that came along with it - that I started recommending the CT scan to friends.

A number of my footballing buddies decided to act on my advice. One of them, a fit guy who does the occasional ultramarathon and who is always ready to race 10km with anyone, was told by the doctor after the scan - "Get up and run no more." His arteries were as clogged as a dirty fuel pump and doing more than slow walking or attempting to cover a distance of more than 3km would be suicidal, he was told.

He quit his hectic job a short while later. He now eats like a Shaolin monk, feeding on tofu and steamed vegetables, takes on part-time projects and just chills out whenever he gets the chance.

Another friend was told after his CT scan that it was a wonder he had not suffered a heart attack as yet. He too had major blockages, and at very delicate spots at that. He too gave up eating like Oprah Winfrey and decided on a complete lifestyle change especially when it came to eating.

My brother-in-law was a tough one to crack. He took some persuading before he agreed to a CT scan though the cardiologist who saw him did not take very long to convince him that he had to be back within a week to get fitted with three stents because of serious blockages.

Did my advice play a part in helping these buddies avert a heart attack? I think so. All of them learnt about their condition and altered their lifestyle drastically.

But the amount of radiation a CT scan subjects the body to is not to be ignored. When I first wrote on my experience, a reader, presumably a doctor disagreed with what I had done because of the high level of radiation the procedure entailed.

A Reuters report said recent studies have raised alarm about such scans, which it said exposed patients to double, triple or quadruple the radiation exposure of an angiogram, raising cancer risks. So it is good news that US researchers have found a way to cut the radiation dose from a heart CT scan by half without sacrificing the quality of the scan.

But even at the current high levels of radiation, my health tip to friends who have serious concerns about chest pains and such that have been plaguing them would still be - Go get a CT scan. I believe some of them are still around today because they did just that.