Up to 30% of heart attacks occur in people with a zero calcium score, many of whom are labeled “healthy.” Even more concerning, nearly 75% of heart attacks arise from plaques causing less than 40% narrowing — lesions often missed by stress tests and dismissed as nonobstructive. Nearly half of patients experience no warning symptoms before their event.

Data from Mount Sinai expose the limits of the current approach: Risk scores just two days before a heart attack perform no better than a coin flip, and 60% of patients report no preceding symptoms. In short, waiting for symptoms — or relying on traditional testing — often means waiting too long.

Heart disease remains the No. 1 cause of death after age 40 and the No. 3 cause among adults ages 30–40, yet conventional testing frequently misses early, high-risk disease.

Recognizing this gap, Dr. Alberto Morales, owner of South Tampa Cardiology and Advanced Imaging Center, is advancing a proactive, cancer-style model of heart care — using advanced cardiac CT to directly visualize coronary plaque and inflammation before symptoms appear.