Coronary CT angiography (CTCA) scans do not reduce the risk of heart attacks or cardiac death over three years in patients with acute chest pain whose heart attacks have been excluded, according to the results of a trial presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Munich.
The Troponin in Acute Chest Pain to Risk Stratify and Guide EffecTive Use of Computed Tomography Coronary Angiography (TARGET-CTCA) trial involved 3,170 people with acute chest pain who had a heart attack ruled out in the emergency department.
After three years, 7.1% of patients who had a CTCA scan had a heart attack or died due to a heart attack, heart failure or sudden cardiac death, compared with 7.3% in the group that received standard care.
With at least 1.5 million people attending emergency departments in the UK each year with chest pain, the researchers say putting their findings into practice would help lessen the burden on overstretched radiology and cardiology departments and reduce health care costs. The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Why extra scans were considered
