Invasive heart test being dramatically overused

An invasive heart test used routinely to measure heart function is being dramatically overused, especially among patients who recently underwent similar, more effective tests, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine. "This adds both risk to the patient and significant extra cost," said first author of the study Ronald Witteles, assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine and program director of Stanford's internal medicine residency training program, who called the rates of unnecessary use "shockingly high." The procedure, called left ventriculography or left ventriculogram, was developed 50 years ago to assess how well the heart functions by using a measurement method called ‘ejection fraction’ -- the percentage of blood that gets squeezed out with each heartbeat. The investigators found that it is routinely performed as an add-on procedure during a coronary angiogram, a separate heart-imaging test, at an extra cost of $300.