Mobile Digital Health

By Donna Lampa

The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology released a joint statement urging research to be done to determine the link between sleep apnea and heart disease, following increasing evidence of just such a connection, as well as the widespread prevalence of sleep apnea and rising levels of obesity in the United States, especially among young people. Obesity is a major cause of sleep apnea

“We feel it is important to alert the cardiovascular community to the implications of this emerging area of research. It is possible that diagnosing and treating sleep apnea may prove to be an important opportunity to advance our efforts at preventing and treating heart disease,” said Dr. Virend K. Somers, a professor of medicine and cardiovascular diseases at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

“We need to more clearly define the cause and effect relationship between sleep apnea and cardiovascular diseases and risk factors,” he noted. “There is evidence that sleep apnea may be a cause of some cases of high blood pressure, but for other cardiovascular conditions, the evidence is largely circumstantial

Medicare had proposed stopping coverage for CT scans used to diagnose heart disease, but after receiving complaints from many Medical Societies including the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Radiology, they reversed their decision.

According to the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Radiology  – the “policy would have a profoundly negative impact on Medicare beneficiaries by limiting needed access to this technology for clinically appropriate indications.”

High-tech scans are one of the fastest growing areas of health-care spending, and The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service is determined to cuts costs. But for now, the agency will let the Regional Medicare carriers make their  own decisions on this and they usually tend to cover the test.

Medicare paid for an estimated 70,000 of the heart scans in 2006, at a cost of $40 million to $50 million.

The scans can serve a purpose similar to conventional angiography, in which X-ray images of the coronary vessels heart are enhanced with a dye injected by a catheter. A set of guidelines, created by several medical societies, recommends using the scans only on certain patients who have some evidence of heart disease, such as those with chest pain and a hard-to-evaluate stress test.

Since CT scans are less invasive than angiography, there is some concern that they might be used for screening patients who don’t show symptoms of disea