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News / Headlines
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:Daniel Keeney, APR
DPK Public Relations
832.467.2904
dan@dpkpr.com
American Heart Month Stories Leave SHAPE Task Force Both
Encouraged and Concerned
Sensational stories attract attention, but true meaning of
“prevention” could be misunderstood
HOUSTON, February 7, 2011 – SHAPE, The Society for Heart Attack
Prevention and Eradication (http://www.shapesociety.org), a
nonprofit organization that promotes early detection and preventive
intervention to eradicate heart attacks, today urged journalists
working on American Heart Month stories to update their advice for
how apparently healthy individuals can discover hidden heart attack
risk.
“We welcome the increased attention that cardiovascular disease is
getting and believe adult men and women can benefit from increased
understanding of hidden heart attack risk,” said Dr. PK Shah,
chairman of the SHAPE Scientific Board and director, Division of
Cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and Medical Center in Los
Angeles. “Understandably, the media gravitates toward sensational
stories involving near death experiences, but we encourage those
crafting stories to make note of recent scientific and technological
developments of preventive cardiology that make it possible to more
accurately assess a seemingly healthy individual’s hidden heart risk
so they can get the preventive treatment they need.”
The SHAPE Task Force’s 1st SHAPE Guideline, published in 2006,
encourages physicians to implement screening for subclinical
(asymptomatic) atherosclerosis (cholesterol plaque build-up) in men
age 45 and older, and women age 55 and older who are at risk for
atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. SHAPE recommends two
scientifically proven non-invasive atherosclerosis tests: coronary
artery calcification scoring (CACS) by a computed tomography (CT)
scan and carotid artery intima-media thickness (CIMT) scanning by
ultrasound. These tests have improved our ability to assess
near-term heart attack risk in otherwise seemingly healthy
individuals so that timely preventive strategies can be implemented.
“Once these scientifically proven tests are widely adopted, we
estimate that thousands of first heart attacks could be prevented
and thousands of lives could be saved,” said Dr. Erling Falk, chief
of the SHAPE Task Force Editorial Committee. “Now that costs of
these tests have come down and we have the support of organizations
such as the American Heart Association and the American College of
Cardiology Foundation, we anticipate the pace of adoption will
accelerate significantly.”
The SHAPE Task Force referred to the recent ABC special, “A Matter
of Life and Death,” during which Late Night Host, David Letterman,
urged viewers to take advantage of available technology.
“Mr. Letterman said, ‘There’s no reason why a man or woman in this
day and age should unexpectedly drop dead of a heart attack,’ which
is 100 percent correct and a message we hope is repeated in the
media as well as in doctor’s offices around the world,” said Dr.
Morteza Naghavi, executive chairman of the SHAPE Task Force.
“Tragically, very few people without symptoms are ever advised to
have an atherosclerosis test and therefore hundreds of thousands of
men and women unknowingly remain a ticking time bomb waiting for a
sudden heart attack to strike.”
Most first heart attacks are caused by hidden buildup of
atherosclerotic plaque in coronary arteries that can rupture,
triggering a blood clot leading to abrupt blockage of blood flow to
the heart. Traditional methods of assessing heart attack risk such
as cholesterol, blood pressure, EKGs and stress tests, while useful,
have proven insufficient to accurately identify heart attack risk.
The SHAPE Task Force is currently finalizing work on an update of
the SHAPE Guideline to incorporate the findings of recent scientific
studies that confirmed the value of CACS and CIMT. These studies
include Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study (ARIC) and the
Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), sponsored by the
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National
Institutes of Health, and the Heinz Nixdorf Recall Study, funded by
the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation and the German Foundation of Research.
The SHAPE Task Force includes the following:
Morteza Naghavi, M.D. – Executive Chairman
PK Shah, M.D. – Chair of Scientific Board
Erling Falk, M.D., Ph.D. – Chief of Editorial Committee
SHAPE Task Force Members:
Daniel S. Berman, M.D., Matthew J. Budoff, M.D., Michael H.
Davidson, M.D., Jim Ehrlich, M.D., Raimund Erbel, M.D., Erling Falk,
M.D., Ph.D., Steven B. Feinstein, M.D., Kirk Geter, D.P.M., Craig
Hartley, Ph.D., Harvey S. Hecht, M.D., Howard Hodis, M.D., Sanjay
Kaul, M.D., M.P.H., Iftikhar J. Kullo, M.D., Daniel Lane, M.D.,
Ph.D., Marge Lovell, R.N., Ralph Metcalfe, Ph.D., Tasneem Z. Naqvi,
M.D., Morteza Naghavi, M.D., Paolo Raggi, M.D., George P. Rodgers,
M.D., PK Shah, M.D., David Spence, M.D., H. Robert Superko, M.D.,
Henrik Sillesen, M.D., Ph.D., Pierre-Jean Touboul, M.D.
SHAPE Task Force Advisors:
Valentin Fuster, M.D., Ph.D., Leslee Shaw, Ph.D.
SHAPE Task Force II Executive Coordinator: Jeff Fine, M.S., Ph.D.
About SHAPE:
Originated from the Texas Medical Center in Houston, the Society for
Heart Attack Prevention and Eradication (SHAPE) is a non-profit
organization founded by Dr. Morteza Naghavi, a former faculty member of the
Texas Heart Institute and the University of Texas in Houston. The
mission of SHAPE is to promote education and research related to
the mechanism, prevention, detection, and treatment of heart attacks.
The organization is committed to raising public awareness about
recent revolutionary discoveries that have opened exciting new avenues to
prevent heart attack. SHAPE's mission is to eradicate heart attacks
in the 21st century. Additional information is available on the
organization's Web site at www.shapesociety.org or call 1-877-SHAPE11
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