Technology matters in the treatment of heart diseases. Cardiologist Dr. Serdar Biçeroğlu, Private Sağlık Hospital said that the death rate due to heart diseases, which increased due to stress, unbalanced diet, sedentary lifestyle and obesity, still ranks first among all deaths.
Cardiologist Dr. Serdar Biçeroğlu pointed out that despite all these technological advances, the fact that heart diseases are still in the first place makes one think that something else is needed in order to reduce death rates.
Giving the information that more effective treatments are applied in heart diseases with the developing technology, Cardiologist Biçeroğlu said, “If we evaluate it in the light of historical developments, the medical world has always succeeded in presenting an exciting innovation regarding heart diseases. Despite every successful innovation, the expectation could not be met. Although the understanding of cardiovascular diseases gives the opportunity to develop new treatments, a test to predict heart attack has not been developed yet.
Imaging of the vessels feeding the heart (coronary angiography) has given opportunities to understand diseases. Over time, with the advancement of technology, it has become possible to make balloons and place stents in thin, curved, fully occluded vessels. The use of stents has created a different situation, and the phase and type of the disease has gained more importance in stent placement. The development of drugs used with stents has increased success and mortality rates have decreased. However, this time, more chronic patients started to live and the risk group expanded.”
Technology takes advantage
Cardiologist Dr. Serdar Biçeroğlu underlined that with the developing technology, computed tomography used in coronary imaging provides an advantage in the diagnosis and treatment process.
Biçeroğlu said, “Imaging technology, which focused on heart MRI in the early 2000s, searched for an alternative because it was not practical in imaging the heart, which is a moving organ. It was precisely in this time period that computerized tomography began to be used in coronary imaging. Technological progress in this field has rapidly met with science and has begun to offer assistance in understanding the disease. Scientific results were obtained by combining the data obtained from imaging and the follow-up of the applied patients. In the light of this information, risk groups have started to be determined more accurately. With the information obtained from the imaging of all vessels, information about the diseases of the heart vessels, which are thinner than all other vessels, can be obtained.”