A major report led by Vanderbilt investigators found that the mere presence of even a small amount of calcified coronary plaque, more commonly referred to as coronary artery calcium (CAC), in people under age 50 — even small amounts — was strongly associated with increased risk of developing clinical coronary heart disease over the ensuing decade.
A major report led by Vanderbilt investigators found that the mere presence of even a small amount of calcified coronary plaque, more commonly referred to as coronary artery calcium (CAC), in people under age 50 — even small amounts — was strongly associated with increased risk of developing clinical coronary heart disease over the ensuing decade.
The study, appearing today (Feb. 8) in JAMA Cardiology, also revealed that those with the highest coronary artery calcium scores, as measured by computed tomography (CT) scan, had a greater than 20 percent chance of dying of a heart event over that same time period.
CAC has long been associated with coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease. However, prognostic data on CAC in younger adults — people in their 30s and 40s — have been very limited, especially in African Americans and women.
“We always thought you had to have a certain amount of this plaque before you were at risk of having events. What we showed was that, for younger people, any amount of coronary artery calcium or dramatically and statistically significantly increased risk of clinical heart disease,” said Jeffrey Carr, M.D., M.Sc., Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Radiology and Radiological Sciences at Vanderbilt and lead author of the study.
Read more at Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Photo: Jeffrey Carr, M.D., M.Sc.
