Why the study?
Does coronary artery calcium screening by computed tomography improve cardiovascular risk stratification compared to traditional risk algorithms?
Does coronary artery calcium screening by computed tomography improve cardiovascular risk stratification compared to traditional risk algorithms?
Coronary artery calcium screening by computed tomography offers a promising approach for individualized cardiovascular risk stratification by directly quantifying subclinical atherosclerosis.
May support CAC for refined individual risk stratification; leaves open prospective validation before practice change.
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Algorithms and equations to calculate risk of cardiovascular events, though very useful as an in-office tool to conduct a preliminary assessment demonstrate a limited ability to predict risk in the individual patient. This has favored the development of several imaging modalities for subclinical atherosclerosis such as imaging of coronary calcium by computed tomography. RECENT FINDINGS: Arterial wall calcification is intimately associated with atherosclerosis development and is therefore an optimal marker of the presence of disease. The paradigm underlying the use of imaging technologies to identify subclinical disease is that the quantification of plaque burden may provide a better risk stratification approach for the individual patient than the currently available tools. SUMMARY: The most recent evidence supports this approach as will be discussed in the current review.
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Bellasi et al. (2005) studied this question.
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