Progression of Coronary Calcium and Incident Coronary Heart Disease Events

Background Coronary artery calcium (CAC) predicts coronary heart disease (CHD) events and serial measurement of CAC has been proposed to evaluate atherosclerosis progression. We examined whether progression of CAC is a predictor of future CHD events. Methods and Results We studied 6,778 persons (52.8% female) aged 45–84 years from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. 5,682 persons had baseline and follow-up CAC scans approximately 2.5 ± 0.8 years apart; multiple imputation was used to account for the remainder (n=1,096) missing follow-up scans. Median follow-up duration from the baseline was 7.6 (max=9.0) years. CAC change was assessed by absolute change between baseline and follow-up CAC. Cox proportional hazards regression providing hazard ratios (HR) examined the relation of change in CAC with CHD events, adjusting for age, gender, ethnicity, baseline calcium score, and other risk factors. 343 total and 206 hard CHD events occurred. The annual change in CAC averaged 24.9 ± 65.3 units. Among persons without CAC at baseline (n=3,396), a 5 unit annual change in CAC was associated with an adjusted HR of 1.4 (1.0–1.9) for total and 1.5 (1.1–2.1) for hard CHD. Among those with CAC>0 at baseline HR’s (per 100 unit annual change) were 1.2 (1.1–1.4) and 1.3 (1.1–1.5), respectively. Among participants with baseline CAC, those with annual progression of ≥300 units had adjusted HR’s of 3.8 (1.5–9.6) for total and 6.3 (1.9–21.5) for hard CHD compared to those without progression. Conclusions Progression of CAC is associated with an increased risk for future hard and total CHD events.