Most Medical Diagnostic tests are unnecessary and they are being done to fill the pockets of the Diagnostic Centers , a percentage of which goes to unscrupulous Doctors(not all Doctors).
Patients are best advised to seek detailed information from Doctors on Tests on the necessity and relevance of the tests before they take the tests.
They rate cars. They rate electronics. And now Consumer Reports is hoping its product-rating system will better inform consumers about why they should avoid some common heart-disease screening tests.
Most of the nine types of medical screenings for cardiovascular risk are actually unnecessary and possibly harmful for otherwise healthy people, themagazine said on its Web site Thursday.
Blood pressure and cholesterol screenings are definitely helpful, the nonprofit group said in the report. But electrocardiograms and C-reactive protein testing are not a good idea for healthy people, it concluded.
“It’s worrisome that healthy people are getting tests they may not need because a prevention test that is not reliable can lead to a cascade of unnecessary, costly, and in some cases risky follow-up tests and treatment,” Dr. John Santa, director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, said in a statement about the report.
“It’s easier to understand the benefits than the risks,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
The magazine’s ratings are based on advice from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government-sponsored group of physicians without medical industry ties. The task force reviews and rates the scientific evidence behind some proposed procedures. (Task force recommendations on mammograms and prostate tests have been controversial the past few years.) Consumer Reports updated and added to the task force advice on cardiovascular screening tests.
Consumer Reports is also providing a heart-risk calculator on its Web site. People who type in their age, gender and cardiovascular risk profiles, such as hypertension or high cholesterol, can see their 10-year risk of having a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular event, and the suggested screenings.
Most healthy people, the magazine said, should only test for blood pressure, cholesterol and possibly blood glucose. But it was uncertain whether benefits outweigh risks in screening healthy people for C-reactive protein or clogged peripheral arteries. And it said risks almost certainly outweigh benefits in testing healthy people for clogged carotid arteries, abdominal aortic aneurysms and heart EKGs.
In the interview, Dr. Santa described one example of the cascade effect.
“Let’s say a nonspecific finding on an EKG that suggests you could have a problem,” he said. “The next thing you know, a CT scan is going to be suggested, so you’re going to be exposed to some significant radiation. And let’s say that the CT scan doesn’t completely exclude a problem. Well, now you’re talking about an angiogram that has a 1 or 2 percent significant side effect.
“And then of course, if you had an angiogram, let’s say you had a coronary artery that’s 50 percent blocked. Well, now wait a minute, we now know that blockage itself is not significant. There’s a lot more to having a heart problem. But it’s awful hard to look at that blockage and tell a cardiologist not to do something. But in fact all the evidence for angioplasty and heart surgery is that they help people who have chest pain, and the degree to which they help people with no symptoms at all is very, very limited, and it may not help at all. This cascade can happen quickly.”
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/rating-heart-risk-tests/
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