I was interviewed and quoted in this article written by Ms Ruby Prosser Scully, published in The Medical Republic regarding the new statement from the National Health Foundation of Australia on coronary artery calcium scoring. [URL : PDF]
Scully RP. Calcium score gets cautious backing from Heart Foundation. The Medical Republic. 2021 May 17. Available from: https://medicalrepublic.com.
Quotation
“GP Michael Tam, deputy chair of Sydney South West GP Link, warned clinicians to “not be overconfident in what are fundamentally limited recommendations based on low-strength evidence”.
“I think it is fair to say that it is plausible that CAC may have important clinical benefits in some settings, but this has yet to be well demonstrated and it is also plausible that it may actually have little overall impact on hard patient outcomes,” said the conjoint senior lecturer at UNSW.
…
Dr Tam said GPs needed to be especially careful when treating those classified as having “moderate” absolute cardiovascular risk on traditional risk calculators.
“Simply, most people will end up in this category at some point simply due to age, and the evidence simply does not support the use of CAC as a de facto screening tool,” Dr Tam said.”
