Introduction: The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of measurement of coronary artery calcification score (CAC) in patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) and a normal myocardial perfusion scan. Methods: In a prospective study we measured the calcium score of 74 patients (29 m, 45 f, mean age 58.7 (m) and 64.4 (f)) with suspicion of CAD and a normal perfusion scan. In ...

BACKGROUND Electron beam CT (EBCT) is an accurate, noninvasive method to detect and quantify coronary artery calcification, a marker of coronary artery disease (CAD). This investigation examined the accuracy of EBCT to detect obstructive CAD (> or =50% stenosis) and determined the optimal strata for quantity of coronary artery calcification to facilitate clinical decision-making. METHODS AND ...

INTRODUCTION Coronary artery disease (CAD) is an important etiology of atrial fibrillation (AF). Coronary artery calcification is a marker of coronary atherosclerosis and coronary events. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether larger left atrium (LA) and pulmonary veins (PVs) were seen by multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) scans in those patients with higher coronary calcium...

Coronary artery disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the developed world. Effective means of treatment such as drug therapy to lower cholesterol levels are available, but clinical application to patients at highest risk remains imprecise. Electron beam computed tomography (EBCT) has been suggested as a means to diagnose subclinical coronary disease and facilitate risk stratification, but no c...

In this issue of iJACC, Silverman et al. (1) report the relationship of baseline Agatston coronary artery calcium (CAC) score and coronary calcium distribution with future incident coronary revascularization in 6,540 MESA (Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis) participants. The primary findings of this novel analysis is that baseline calcium score and the number of vessels with CAC were each i...

BACKGROUND Whether the absence of coronary artery calcium, or conversely the presence of high volumes of coronary artery calcium, may alter assessment of coronary heart disease risk based on traditional risk factors is uncertain. We sought to identify a potential threshold of coronary artery calcium for clinical use and examine the predictive power of coronary artery calcium in individuals cate...