Even small plaque amounts can trigger heart attack: Study

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- When blood can't pass through your coronary arteries, it can trigger a heart attack. But what if you only have a little bit of plaque buildup? Is it something to be hugely concerned about? A new study finds any amount of plaque is something that needs to be addressed.

"If somebody's having chest pain it generally means that they have a plaque that is blocking more than 70 percent of the coronary artery," said cardiologist Dr. Thomas M. Maddox. "So we call that obstructive coronary disease."

Smaller amounts of plaque are usually less cause for concern, but doctors have always suspected it can be just as serious.

"We were concerned that perhaps those non-obstructive plaques did have a risk for causing a heart attack down the road," said Maddox.

In a study provided by the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Maddox and his colleagues examined angiograms of more than 37,000 U.S. veterans over a three-year period. Researchers wanted to see whether patients with smaller blockages had heart attacks or died in the year following their angiogram.

"Patients with non-obstructive disease had a two- to five-time higher risk of heart attack and death," said Maddox. "We haven't been able to see that relationship before."

Maddox says it might be time to look at coronary artery disease in a different light.

"Rather than simply thinking about obstructive and non-obstructive, we should probably be thinking about any coronary artery disease versus no coronary artery disease," said Maddox.

Researchers emphasize any kind of coronary disease is a risk, even if it's not causing chest pain. It is also important for patients to consider medications and lifestyle changes to reduce their heart attack risk.