SCAD Description and Management
The Mayo Clinic SCAD Research Program's study on the description and management of SCAD uses data from Mayo Clinic's SCAD Registry to find patterns in participants with confirmed SCAD. The research team is looking at:
- How often each participant's SCAD occurs.
- Clinical characteristics.
- Treatment received.
- In-hospital results.
- Long-term risk of another SCAD or other major cardiac events.
The study already has found several major clinical features of SCAD. For example:
- In the first group of participants, more men than women had been doing a demanding activity or making a strong physical effort when their SCAD occurred.
- A large portion of participants have fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD).
- Some women recently had given birth.
- Nearly one-quarter of participants had SCAD in more than one blood vessel.
The research team also is looking at strategies to manage SCAD. Conservative strategies are often recommended, as SCAD can heal. But the program's research suggests that patients who are being treated conservatively should be monitored because SCAD will progress in some patients and require intervention. The research also suggests that procedures to open blood vessels of the heart — also called coronary angioplasty and stent placement or percutaneous coronary intervention — may be right if a patient is unstable, if their SCAD is getting worse or both. Coronary artery bypass grafting is the least commonly employed strategy.
To better understand the long-term risk of SCAD happening again, Mayo researchers did follow-ups with participants in the years after their SCAD. In these follow-ups, 15% of participants reported having another SCAD. Program researchers estimate that the 10-year rate of major cardiac events, including death, heart failure, heart attack or another SCAD, is even higher. These estimates stress the need for close follow-up and care of people with SCAD.
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