Imaging Patients with Kidney Failure

Low Coronary Artery Calcium Score Associated With Excellent Prognosis Regardless Of Age: New Study

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Avera Medical Minute: Can Your Genes Predict Heart Disease?

TRIPP, S.D. (Dakota News Now) - Diet and exercise have long been recognized as key contributors to a healthy heart, but how much of our heart health is determined by our DNA?

In this Avera Medical Minute, we take you to Tripp, South Dakota, where a family's heart history was a small clue to an otherwise hidden diagnosis.

"Moving calves physically, you know, as far as my health, I thought I was feeling fine other than maybe shortness of breath every now and then," said Brian Mogck.

Raising cattle has run in the Mogck family for generations, but that's not the only thing.

"My dad had a heart attack and bypassed in his mid-50s. So with the history of my family and, you know, at my age, too, I'm getting in my upper 60s. I thought, you know, maybe now's the time," said David Mogck.

Being the older brother, David was the first to schedule a Planet Heart screen, and his results quickly justified the visit.

You could just see on her face that, because I told my wife before I found out, I told my wife, I said, "I don't have a good feeling about this," and then they told me what the results were and real high calcium levels," said David Mogck.

"Planet Heart is helpful because it really helps us define risk, right? It's not going to tell us necessarily how bad of a blockage do you have and where is it? It helps us know what is your risk over the next 10 years of having, you know, a heart attack or a stroke and things like that, and what can we do to prevent that?" said John Wagener, MD.

David's calcium score pointed to further testing, so an angiogram was ordered to check for a possible blockage.

If you do have a problem and we can fix it and we can do a stint, we will do that right away. Well, as quick as that seemed that went, I thought, "Uh-oh, this probably didn't go good," and then my wife told me, she said, "Yeah, you're going to need triple bypass," said David Mogck.

"When they find disease in all three of the main arteries, stenting is certainly an option. Medical treatment is an option, but if you have disease in all three of your arteries, then bypass surgery is certainly a good option, and so we ended up doing a triple bypass on him," said Tommy Reynolds, MD

Catching the problem before an emergency means a less challenging road to recovery, and David was giving Brian the Planet Heart pitch before he even left the hospital.

"I just, I told him, I said, "You need to get checked," and he did!" said David.

"I eventually got checked out and I went to Planet Heart," said Brian.

"I found out he had a higher calcium score than I had!" said David.

"So when they saw that, then they started doing more testing, I was kind of stunned that it was going to be triple bypass," said Brian.

"These guys are, like the nurse said, they were the two healthiest guys we have in Tripp, and they both had bypass surgery, so genetics plays a big part of it!" said Dr. Reynolds.

"If your father or mother have had it, you may have it too, so it's, absolutely, you need to get checked out about it," said Brian Mogck.

After having the same surgery, five months apart, David and Brian are on the mend, and hope their example shows just how sneaky heart disease can be. They're lucky they're both back doing what they love. And for David, he has a little extra leverage against his younger brother, what with helping save his life and all.

"I am going to definitely hold that one on him because he really, I think he questioned whether he should do it, but I pushed pretty hard!" laughed David Mogck.

"I'm living life, living life, you know, doing what I had been doing. I don't want to change, you know, raising cattle and seeing the grandkids and all that. That's what life's all about," said Brian Mogck.

Planet Heart is recommended for men over the age of 40 and women over the age of 45, but if you have a family history, it's possible to start sooner. For more information on cardiovascular screenings go to avera.Org/medicalminute.

Copyright 2025 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.

Mammograms Can Help Assess Women's Heart Health As Well

Key Takeaways

Mammogram scans also can be used to screen for heart health

The X-rays can see calcium deposits in arteries within breast tissue

Women with more calcified arteries have a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and heart failure

TUESDAY, March 25, 2025 (HealthDay News) -- Mammograms can be used to screen for more than just breast cancer, researchers say.

The X-ray breast scans also can be used to assess calcium deposits in arteries, which is an indicator of heart health, researchers are scheduled to report Monday at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Chicago.

Using artificial intelligence (AI), researchers were able to analyze calcium buildup in the arteries within breast tissue, and link those findings to women's five-year risk of death, results show.

Women with severe levels of breast arterial calcification had nearly three times the risk of death within five years as those with little to no calcium buildup, researchers report.

"We see an opportunity for women to get screened for cancer and also additionally get a cardiovascular screen from their mammograms," lead researcher Dr. Theo Dapamede, a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University in Atlanta, said in a news release.

"Our study showed that breast arterial calcification is a good predictor for cardiovascular disease, especially in patients younger than age 60," Dapamede said. "If we are able to screen and identify these patients early, we can refer them to a cardiologist for further risk assessment."

Previous studies have shown that women with calcium buildup in their arteries have a 51% higher risk of heart disease and stroke, researchers said in background notes.

Around 40 million mammograms are performed in the U.S. Each year, and breast artery calcifications can be seen on the resulting images, showing up as bright pixels on the X-rays, researchers noted.

However, radiologists do not usually analyze or report these calcifications, instead focusing solely on evidence of breast cancer, researchers said.

For this study, researchers trained AI to look for calcified arteries in mammogram images. The AI scanned images and health records for more than 56,000 patients who had a mammogram at Emory between 2013 and 2020.

The AI found that the risk of heart attack, stroke or heart failure increased with breast calcification levels in women younger than 60 and women 60 to 80, but not in women 80 or older.

Results also showed that women with the highest levels of breast arterial calcification had a significantly lower five-year rate of survival without a heart attack, stroke or heart failure.

For example, about 86% of those with the highest levels survived for five years compared with 95% of the lowest levels, researchers said.

That translates to about 2.8 times the risk of death within five years for patients with severe breast arterial calcification, results show.

If the AI receives approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it could be made available to other health care systems to incorporate into their routine mammography programs, researchers said.

They also plan to explore whether AI also could use mammogram imaging to check for other conditions like peripheral artery disease and kidney disease.

Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The National Cancer Institute has more about mammograms.

SOURCE: American College of Cardiology, news release, March 20, 2025

What This Means For You

In the future, women may be able to get heart health checks using their regular mammograms.

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