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Combining a CT scanner with an electrocardiography machine provides a cheap
way to screen for heart disease or stroke risks, according to Jeffrey Carr of
the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North
Carolina. Normal CT scans are too slow to capture a clear image of a beating
heart. But in Carr’s system the ECG tells the scanner when the heart is at rest,
allowing it to capture pictures that will show up any threatening calcium
deposits in arteries. In a short trial, the ECG-CT identified at-risk patients
almost as effectively as the prohibitively expensive electron-beam CT
machine.