Cone Health Doctors Can Better Predict Heart Attacks

Cone Health is the first place in North Carolina offering Heartflow Plaque Analysis technology to help people avoid heart attacks.

Greensboro – People thought to be at risk for heart disease are often asked to get calcium scores. The simple test can help determine if a person is at risk of having a heart attack. But it can’t easily tell if the best treatment is to lower your cholesterol or if something more urgent is needed. Heartflow Plaque Analysis can. And Cone Health Heart & Vascular Center is the first place in North Carolina to make this advanced imaging technology available to patients. 

Heartflow’s AI-driven technology goes beyond traditional tests by identifying different types of plaque in the heart’s arteries—including those most likely to cause heart attacks—and measuring how they affect blood flow to the heart. “This is truly unprecedented technology,” says Dr. Wesley O’Neal, a cardiologist at Cone Health. “It fundamentally changes how we assess cardiovascular risk and allows us to intervene earlier to potentially prevent heart attacks rather than react to them.” 

Plaque analysis will be used to refine treatment of patients. The information helps doctors determine the most appropriate treatment pathway. This may include lifestyle changes, medications, or minimally invasive procedures such as stenting. 

Doctors at Cone Health were involved in two major studies looking into the potential benefits of the technology, which uses AI-powered analysis of coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA) images to provide more detail than ever before. “Plaque analysis tells us how much plaque a person has, what kind and where it is in the heart, and the potential impact on blood flow through the heart’s arteries. The upstream potential is enormous,” says Dr. Thomas Stuckey, one of the study’s authors and the medical director emeritus of the LeBauer-Brodie Center for Cardiovascular Research and Education at Cone Health.  

Researchers at Cone Health are already planning the next use of this technology—more personalized treatment of patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), commonly known as coronary angioplasty or stenting. They will soon begin a study using the detailed models of a patient’s heart to more exactly match the length and size of a coronary stent. Stents are commonly used to improve blood flow to areas of the heart with narrow or blocked arteries.