KCUR: Saint Luke's Cardiologist and Patient Raise Awareness of SCAD During Heart Month

Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection (SCAD) is the number one cause of heart attack for women under 50 in the United States, and 4% of all heart attacks can be attributed to the condition. What is even more unique is that it doesn’t follow the causation of a traditional heart attack, where there is plaque buildup and a blockage. With SCAD, young, healthy women with no risk factors are showing up in the Emergency Room with heart attacks. SCAD also cannot be treated with typical treatments for heart attacks. SCAD often results in sudden death, with some estimates of mortality for SCAD as high as 70%.

KCUR's Up To Date host, Steve Kraske, spoke with patient Nancy Holland, a multiple spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) survivor, and Dr. Anna Grodzinsky, cardiologist with Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute, as they raise awareness for SCAD and heart health.

Saint Luke’s Muriel I. Kauffman Women’s Heart Center is one of the only hospitals in the region with physicians specially trained to recognize and treat SCAD. The Women's Heart Center is also one of more than 15 academic centers across the country participating in the iSCAD Registry and is one of the three largest contributors. The iSCAD Registry is a collaborative research study funded by the non-profit organization SCAD Alliance. The data registry follows enrolled patients over the course of time to better understand how to diagnose SCAD, the barriers to diagnosis, and how the patients do long term.