CBS Atlanta 46New tool helps doctors detect heart attacks in women

Betty Graham had never been sick a day in her life.

"I used to exercise a whole lot; I was very active," she said.

So when the 66-year-old retired accountant started experiencing chest pain out of the blue, she was alarmed. "I felt like an elephant had just sat on top of my chest. I couldn't get my breath," she described.

Thankfully, doctors at Emory University Hospital were able to pinpoint her problem with the help of intravascular ultrasound, or IVUS.

Dr. Habib Samady, an interventional cardiologist, says IVUS may do a better job at detecting heart attacks in women than standard angiograms.

"The ultrasound is able to image the wall of the heart arteries so it identifies plaque," Samady said.

Not only do women sometimes present different heart attack symptoms than men, but the plaque within their arteries distributes differently.

"Men tend to have the more typical sort of plaque that's very, very heavy in volume and it protrudes into the lumen so that the angiogram is more likely to pick that up," Samady explained. Whereas in 30 to 40 percent of women, the plaque spreads more evenly along the artery walls and may not show up on an angiogram.

"If you think about these arteries as a hose, you're just seeing inside the hose (with the angiogram) where the water runs. You're not actually seeing the wall of the hose," Samady said.

With IVUS, doctors can see plaque along the wall of the arteries and they can see it in color, which helps them identify areas of dangerous buildup. Green symbolizes stable, fibrous plaque, while red signifies more intense lipid.

But not everyone with chest pain is a candidate for intravascular ultrasound. "It would only be used in patients who you're taking and doing an angiogram on -- taking to the cath lab. So that's going to be a patient that you're already quite worried about," Samady said.

The doctors were right to worry about Betty. After all, heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women in the U.S.

But thanks to IVUS and other tools, they were able to diagnose her heart troubles and get her feeling better with medications. "Do I think my life has changed? Yes, but it's not over," Graham said.

Even though the technology used to diagnose heart attacks is getting better, it's important that all women focus on prevention, which means losing weight if you need to, controlling your blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes, and quitting smoking. One thing you can't control but should be aware of is your family history.

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