Why is Early Diagnosis of Heart Disease Important ?
Once a provider has diagnosed a disease like congestive heart failure or cancer, we review options for treatment with the patient. Both in heart disease and in cancer, there are “stages” of disease which indicate the severity. Stage 1 is the earliest and mildest stage. Stage 4 is the most advanced stage. The treatments we offer to patients are, in part, determined by the stage of the disease. Treatments may include lifestyle changes, medication or even surgery. The types of treatments, and the effectiveness of those treatments, become more limited as the stage of the disease advances.
Congestive heart failure is typically a chronic disease. Chronic implies that the root causes of heart failure started long before the disease is diagnosed. It is rare for congestive heart failure to start suddenly, unless it occurs after a significant heart atack (myocardial infarction) or a severe viral infection (myocarditis). Whether congestive heart failure is sudden (acute) or chronic, the universal cause of congestive heart failure is that the heart cells produce less energy. This results in a progressive decrease in the heart’s main function which is to pump blood.
As we discussed in a previous blog, injured heart cells can recover with treatment. Some cells in the body, like skin, can make new skin cells when old cells die. When you “peel” after a sunburn, the old, dead skin cells peel off and the body makes new skin cells to replace the old ones. However, your body is unable to make new heart cells to replace heart cells that die. If we could diagnose congestive heart failure at an early stage, your provider would have more and better options for your treatment. If congestive heart failure is diagnosed at a later stage, your provider has fewer and less effective options.
All of the current tests that are used to diagnose congestive heart failure are based on detecting damage to the heart. This means that the congestive heart failure is almost always at a later stage when it is diagnosed. This limits the options for treatment that your provider can offer. It also means the treatment may not be as effective as if the treatment was started at an earlier stage. One of the incentives for creating EMF Disturbance Technology was the possibility of creating an innovative, non-invasive test that could diagnose congestive heart failure at an earlier stage. This would potentially provide both patients and providers the widest range of effective treatment options. You can follow our journey on our web site as we begin clinical trials for the early diagnosis of congestive heart failure.
