In an editorial on “The Potential and Pitfalls of Coronary Artery Calcium Scoring,” printed in JAMA Cardiology in October, Dr. Khan and her co-author, Dr. Ann Marie Navar, a heart specialist on the College of Texas Southwestern Medical Faculty, concluded that for middle-aged and older adults like my good friend, the calcium take a look at is without doubt one of the finest and most secure methods to determine the presence of in any other case hidden atherosclerosis.
Why youthful adults ought to care.
Outcomes of a calcium scan can be vital for youthful women and men — and typically for his or her physicians, who could not take threat components in youthful sufferers as severely as they need to.
“Given the strong affiliation between coronary artery calcium and heart problems,” Drs. Khan and Navar wrote, “the presence of coronary artery calcium in younger adults must be a pink flag for a high-risk affected person.” As Dr. Khan defined in an interview, “The presence of any calcium in coronary arteries is an indication of getting coronary heart illness.”
When atherosclerosis first begins to develop, the arterial lesions, referred to as plaque, will not be calcified, defined Dr. Philip Greenland, additionally a preventive heart specialist at Northwestern. Relatively, the lesions purchase the bony deposits over time that step by step enhance when the plaque ruptures and is repaired. The therapeutic course of causes calcification, he mentioned.
Dr. Greenland cautioned that sufferers and medical doctors ought to by no means assume {that a} calcium rating of zero means there’s nothing to fret about. He mentioned that in males underneath 40 and ladies underneath 50, “you possibly can’t depend on coronary artery calcium alone, as a result of the extent is often zero even within the presence of atherosclerosis.”
Relatively, he and Dr. Kahn mentioned, in youthful adults, follow-up exams and medical recommendation must be based mostly on the extent of sufferers’ cardiovascular threat, together with whether or not they have any signs of coronary heart illness, like shortness of breath when climbing stairs or chest ache when exerting themselves.
The excellent news, and dangerous information, a few zero calcium rating.
Dr. Greenland mentioned that folks with “a low-risk issue profile and a calcium rating of zero have a form of guarantee that they gained’t have a coronary heart assault inside 10 years.”
