Radiological Markers of Cardiovascular Risk Based on Digital Mammography Data.

BACKGROUND: Existing data confirm the association between the risk of developing cardiovascular pathology, radiographic density of the mammary gland and the presence of mammary vascular calcification (VC). However, there is no unambiguous data on the combined effect of radiographic density and VC of the mammary glands (MG) on cardiovascular risk (CVR). AIM: To assess the presence of a relationship between mammographic parameters, such as radiographic density and the presence of benign calcifications, with CVR. METHODS:. Prospective and retrospective study. Mammograms of 1030 patients aged 40 to 89 years were analyzed for the period from 2019 to 2023. The study included women with data allowing to assess CVR. Only mammograms with benign calcifications were included. Calcifications suspicious for malignancy were not taken into account. To obtain data on breast density (BD) and calcifications for each breast, a radiologist evaluated mammograms on a General Electric Senographe Essential SenoIris mammography workstation. The obtained data were analyzed using state-of-the-art UMAP machine learning method. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals for OR were constructed using univariate logistic regression. The most “favorable” group according to mammography data, i.e. the group with high density (ACR C or ACR D) of MG without calcifications, was taken as the reference. OR for the selected groups is given in relation to the reference. Pearson’s χ2 criterion was used to analyze contingency tables. The significance level for all tested hypotheses was 0.05. It was demonstrated that BD and calcification are important prognostic factors for the development of cardiovascular diseases. RESULTS: Eight groups were formed depending on the combinations of the following criteria: high or low density, the presence or absence of vascular and non-vascular calcification (non-VC) and its prevalence. It was demonstrated that in women with low BD and the presence of VC, possibly in combination with non-VC, the probability of detecting high and very high vascular risk is more than 75%. With a combination of vascular and non-VC in more than one segment, the probability is above 90%. CONCLUSION: This study allowed us to establish an association between the radiographic BD, the presence of benign calcifications and CVR.