As a founding partner of Carle Illinois College of Medicine, Carle Health is often the primary clinical partner to collaborate toward bringing unique solutions to medical challenges. The relationship sparks truly innovative research and medical projects with the potential to change the life of millions.
The two joined the Butkus Foundation to launch another opportunity to improve health outcomes locally and globally. Carle Health is partnering with Carle Illinois College of Medicine and the Butkus Foundation to raise awareness and develop evidence that identifies which screening test is better at spotting early signs of coronary plaque build-up. The test targets those who do not have symptoms, especially those with a family history of coronary artery disease.
Study research leads are calling it “Sub-clinical Coronary Atherosclerosis in Asymptomatic Individuals with Family History of PreMature Coronary Artery Disease: A Prospective Community Based Study.” Key to moving forward with the effort is support from the Take Heart™ Initiative, a national effort inspired by Hall of Fame NFL linebacker Dick Butkus after his 2001 heart scan revealed three 100% blocked arteries and two 95% blocked arteries, despite having no symptoms.
The life-saving quintuple bypass that immediately followed extended his life by 23 years and inspired his decades-long advocacy for early detection and prevention. While a student at the University of Illinois, Butkus played both offense and defense for the Fighting Illini and led the team to a Rose Bowl victory in 1963.
The study will target individuals aged 25 to 55 years without any symptoms and without a family history of early coronary disease. In the first phase, participants will be screened with coronary calcium scoring, a short CT scan that checks for calcium buildup in heart arteries.
“If there is calcium you know there is plaque in the arteries,” Issam D. Moussa, MD, medical
director, Heart and Vascular Institute at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, said. “If you have zero calcium, the usual thinking is that your arteries are clear.”
The Butkus Foundation highlighted the partnership at the annual Butkus Awards event that honors athletic achievement and service to the community. Watch a clip of the ceremony here.
Only study participants with zero calcium move on to a second more detailed 3D scan called a computed CT angiography that looks for all types of artery plaque, including non-calcified (early-stage, soft) plaque that may not yet show any calcium.
Dr. Moussa, also a professor of medicine and bioengineering at CI MED, said they anticipate the study will find those with a family history of coronary disease are much more likely to have artery plaque not detected by the first test, even when their calcium scores are zero. “Specifically, we estimate about 40 to 50 percent of these individuals may actually have plaque compared to only about 10 percent people without a family history of heart disease,” he said.
Mark S. Cohen, MD, FACS, dean, Carle Illinois College of Medicine and senior vice president and
chief academic officer, Carle Health, said “In this partnership, we are taking a simple, affordable calcium scan and using artificial intelligence to actually get a lot more information out of it. We are integrating family history, comorbidities, and other signals to not only determine the most ideal imaging screening test a patient will need but also to identify risks not easily seen by the human eye or standard screening methods. In this way, we are creating better models and analytics that allow us to get more patients into preventive treatment programs and new clinical trials to save lives. Together we will be able to advance the field and improve risk screening for sudden cardiac death, saving more lives around the country and around the world."
If the data from the study confirms the theory, it could lead to changes in how doctors screen for coronary disease in patients whose parents or siblings had early coronary disease.
Bringing innovative solutions to medicine is central to the CI MED partnership created in 2015 by the Carle Health system and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. CI MED is educating physician-innovators that deliver compassionate care through transformative solutions developed at the intersection of engineering, science and medicine.
Categories: Redefining Healthcare, Community
Tags: cardiology, Carle Heart and Vascular Institute, Heart, heart and vascular, Heart and Vascular Institute