Cardiologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a non-invasive imaging technique that may help determine whether children who have had heart transplants are showing early signs of rejection. The technique could reduce the need for these patients to undergo invasive imaging tests every one to two years.
\nThe invasive imaging test, a coronary angiogram, involves inserting a catheter into a blood vessel and injecting a dye to look for dangerous plaque on the walls of arteries feeding blood to the heart. This plaque build-up indicates coronary artery disease and is a sign that the body may be rejecting the new heart. Since pediatric heart transplant patients are at high risk of developing coronary artery disease, doctors monitor their arteries on a regular basis. But recurring angiograms become problematic.
\n‘Many of these children have undergone so many operations, we have lost access to their big blood vessels,’ says Charles E. Canter, MD, professor of pediatrics. ‘Sometimes it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cardiologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a non-invasive imaging technique that may help determine whether children who have had heart transplants are showing early signs of rejection. The technique could reduce the need for these patients to undergo invasive imaging tests every one to two years. The invasive imaging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[37,62],"class_list":["post-2363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-news","tag-cardiology","tag-paediatrics"],"yoast_head":"\n