EBT is less invasive and potentially less expensive than the widely used cardiac catheterization, or coronary angiography. Patients do not have to be hospitalized following the test. It may be particularly appropriate for patients with suspected coronary artery bypass blockages or return of blockages in their previously angioplastied coronary vessels. The current, widely used procedure to determine artery blockage, coronary angiography, requires a puncture to be made in the patient's groin, a catheter guided into the coronary arteries and the injection of a contrast agent.
Patients usually spend a day in the hospital following the procedure.
In addition, there is a one to two percent risk of serious complications. It also can be instrumental in assisting clinicians in evaluating the function of the coronary arteries following heart bypass surgery. The EBT scanner was the subject of recent studies by cardiologists at the Cardiovascular Institute and researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health. Currently there are more than 3,500 cardiac catheterization labs in the United States performing more than two million coronary angiograms each year. Cardiovascular disease remains the number one killer of men and women in the United States and affects more than 70 million Americans.