"We'd like to fix it so we have no more normal angiograms, " he says.

CNN: Newer heart test may not be better

For healthy patients, other doctors say, the real risk of death from traditional angiograms is far less than that.

FORBES: Magazine Article

They will disagree with themselves on two successive readings of the same angiograms up to one-third of the time.

FORBES: Are Medical Treatments Keeping Up With Science?

Researchers studied 902 heart attack patients who were given angiograms before the blocked artery was opened with balloon angioplasty or stenting.

BBC: Smoking

But he also argued that traditional angiograms, in which a catheter is used to inject contrast dye before an X-ray is taken, actually kill one out of 1, 000 patients.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Give a group of cardiologists high-quality coronary angiograms (a type of radiograph or x-ray) of typical patients and they will disagree about the diagnosis for about half of the patients.

FORBES: Are Medical Treatments Keeping Up With Science?

In the United States, 30 percent of angiograms find no blockages in the heart arteries, notes Dr. Kim Allan Williams, a professor of medicine and radiology at the University of Chicago.

CNN: Newer heart test may not be better

Another study of 2, 200 individuals found that routinely checking patients' arteries with angiograms, then fixing blockages when necessary with bypass surgery or balloon angioplasty, could reduce those events by 18 percent.

CNN: Research closing in on heart disease