Clinical Practice Guidelines and Recommendations
Electron Beam Computed Tomographic Coronary Calcium Scanning: A Review and Guidelines for Use in Asymptomatic Persons
Coronary artery disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the developed world. Effective means of treatment such as drug therapy to lower cholesterol levels are available, but clinical application to patients at highest risk remains imprecise. Electron beam computed tomography (EBCT) has been suggested as a means to diagnose subclinical coronary disease and facilitate risk stratification, but no current interpretive consensus exists in clinical practice. We critically reviewed current, pertinent literature regarding EBCT coronary calcium scanning from a clinical perspective and, in particular, studies that evaluated it as a measure of atherosclerotic coronary disease.Guidelines for Perioperative Cardiovascular Evaluation for Noncardiac Surgery: An Abridged Version of the Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines
Purpose of These Guidelines.— These guidelines are intended for physicians involved in the preoperative, operative, and postoperative care of patients undergoing noncardiac surgery. They provide a framework for considering cardiac risk of noncardiac surgery in various patient and operative situations. They strive to incorporate the current information on perioperative risk and how this knowledge can be used to treat individual patients. The methods used to develop these guidelines are described in the Appendix.
