Cardiologist awarded grant to identify heart risk in women through routine mammograms
- Victorian Heart Hospital
- 1 min read
Dr Esther Davis is leading a pilot study that uses breast cancer mammograms to detect arterial calcification, a marker for cardiovascular disease, aiming to improve early diagnosis and outcomes for Australian women.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) continues to be underdiagnosed in Australian women, resulting in delayed treatment and poor outcomes.
Dr Esther Davis, a cardiologist and researcher at the Victorian Heart Hospital and Co-Lead of the Women’s Heart Health Research Grand Challenge at the Monash Victorian Heart Institute, is leading a pilot study to change that.
She has been awarded funding through the Victorian government’s Women’s Health Research Catalyst Grants program, which aims to help advance the understanding of how disease and other health issues affect women.
Her project will use mammograms designed to screen for breast cancer to identify women with undiagnosed CVD risk factors.
Under the BreastScreen Australia program, mammography screening is free for women aged 40 and above every two years.
‘When screening for breast cancer, we can also see calcification in the arteries of the breast. This is a powerful surrogate marker for cardiovascular disease and may help us identify women who did not realise they were at risk of heart disease,’ Dr Davis said.
‘Integrating this marker into routine screening in women could help to improve our management of women’s cardiovascular risk, encouraging earlier diagnosis and a better prognosis.’
