MRA reveals atherosclerosis in many low-risk patients

Approximately half of patients considered to have a low risk of developing...Read more on AuntMinnie.comRelated Reading: FDA: Brain coils may cause artifacts on MRA images 7T MRA delves deeper into intracranial aneurysms MRA helps detect risk from unruptured cerebral aneurysmsComments: 5/1/2018 2:00:55 PMC. Poplin MD FACP JD I am not a radiologist, but a Board-certified general internist (and an attorney).  What are we supposed to do with this information?    Does it mean all low-risk, asymptomatic patients should be screened by MRA, and if disease is found, put on a statin?  That is a lot of patients, it would be interesting to calculate number-needed-to-treat--if it is too high, the ACO's will scream low value care, and if a low risk person is not screened and has a bad outcome, there will be a lawsuit (unless the attending doctors are very apologetic, and protocols are rapidly put in to screen everyone).   5/1/2018 2:24:27 PMvonbraun Using this exam as a risk factor in the evaluation of patients that would benefit for primary prevention of significant cardiovascular disease would need much more research. If fact, the use of statins has not been shown to effective for primary prevention of morbidity/mortality from cardiovascular disease. Statins have only been shown to be effective in secondary prevention as far as I know. Note that coronary atheromatous disease is present in many people in their 20s, as shown by autopsy...
Source: AuntMinnie.com Headlines - Category: Radiology Source Type: news