Watson Clinic cardiologist John G. Canto, MD, MSPH, FACC, FACP, FAHA, FASE, recently served as a key contributor to a research study exploring the relationship between the number of primary cardiovascular risk factors a patient possesses and how they reflect the outcome of the patient’s first myocardial infarction, or heart attack.
“We compared data collected from over 542,000 patients who suffered their first episode of heart attack, and examined the prevalence of several key risk factors in each case – including hypertension, tobacco use, cholesterol levels, family history and more,” said Dr. Canto. “We discovered that 15% of patients who suffered their first heart attack presented with no risk factors at all, and the mortality rates increased as their number of risk factors declined. In fact, the study shows that patients who presented with no risk factors suffered the highest incidents of death from myocardial infarction. “
Dr. Canto presented these findings during the 60th Annual Scientific Session and Expo: i2 Summit 2011. Held this year in April in New Orleans, LA, the annual event joins together experts from the fields of cardiovascular research, science, education and intervention. This prestigious event is hosted by the American College of Cardiology in partnership with the Cardiovascular Research Foundation.
Dr. Canto’s areas of expertise include preventive cardiology, chest pain, myocardial infarction and heart attack, coronary disease, and women/ minorities/elderly with heart disease. In addition to being a cardiologist at Watson Clinic since 2004, he serves as the director of Watson Clinic’s Center for Cardiovascular Prevention, Research and Education, and medical director of the Chest Pain Center at Lakeland Regional Medical Center. Dr. Canto works to provide his patients with the most current knowledge and thorough understanding possible of cardiovascular risk prevention and symptom awareness of heart attack. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Diseases, Echocardiography and Nuclear Cardiology.
Dr. Canto attended medical school at the University of Minnesota, and later completed an internship and residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He completed a cardiology fellowship and achieved his Master’s degree in Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he subsequently joined the UAB Faculty and was director of the Chest Pain Center and Coronary Care Unit at University Hospital. He then instructed cardiovascular epidemiology at the UAB School of Public Health.
Dr. Canto’s studies have been published in various medical journals and his work has been profiled by USA Today, Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, BBC, National Public Radio, Good Morning America and NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. For more information, or to schedule a consultation with Dr. Canto, please call 863-680-7490.