CT scans for heart attack challenged

If you're having chest pains, an advanced type of CT scan can quickly rule out a heart attack. New research suggests that might be good for hospitals, but not necessarily for you.

The scans cut hospital time but didn't save money, the study found. They also prompted more tests and questionable treatments and gave doses of radiation to people at such low risk of a heart attack they probably didn't need a major test at all.

There is no evidence that adding these tests saved lives or found more heart attacks, wrote Dr. Rita Redberg, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. Her commentary accompanied the study in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. Radiation from the scans can raise the long-term risk of developing cancer, so doctors "may legitimately ask whether the tests did more harm than good," she wrote. -- AP