Coronary heart disease, or coronary artery disease, is the most common heart disease in adults. You can roughly estimate your chance of developing coronary artery disease by weighing known lifestyle and medical risk factors. Adding a coronary calcium score to these risk factors can help better determine your future risk of a heart attack.
Coronary Heart Disease
Common risk factors for coronary heart disease include high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol levels, a family history of heart disease, smoking and obesity. Any of these can lead to the buildup of atherosclerotic plaque in your coronary arteries, the blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to your heart muscle. Atherosclerotic plaques consist of cholesterol, fats, calcium and other substances that are deposited in the artery walls and gradually expand to block the blood from flowing freely through the vessel. This loss of blood supply can lead to heart-related chest pain, or angina, heart failure and heart attacks. You can have significant plaque formation without any warning signs or symptoms.
Coronary Calcium Scanning
As atherosclerotic plaques in the coronary arteries become larger and more extensive, the risk of developing serious heart disease rises. Larger plaques also tend to have greater amounts of calcium deposits, which can be seen with X-rays and offer a non-invasive way to measure the extent of plaque formation. Using computerized tomography, or CT scanning, you can get X-rays of your heart that measure the extent of calcium in the coronary arteries and reflect your risk of developing coronary heart disease over the next 10 years, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The procedure takes 10 to 15 minutes, and the X-ray scanning portion lasts a few seconds. A radiologist usually interprets the results and then issues a report to your health care provider.
The Coronary Calcium Score
The amount of calcium found in your coronary arteries is graded on a scale known as the coronary calcium score, or Agatston score. A zero score, meaning no calcium is detected, is the healthy, normal result. Scores less than 10 are interpreted as minimal evidence of coronary artery disease, 11 to 100 as mild evidence, 101 to 400 as moderate evidence and scores over 400 as indicating extensive evidence of coronary artery disease, according to RadiologyInfo.org. Higher scores indicate a higher statistical risk of having a heart attack or other complication of coronary artery disease within the next 10 years. A negative report implies very low risk of a heart attack over this period.
Recommendations for Scanning
Coronary calcium scores seem to be most useful for people who are at intermediate, or moderate, risk of developing coronary heart disease, according to the April 28, 2010 issue of the "Journal of the American Medical Association." By better categorizing these people into either a low or high-risk group, the calcium score can help decide whether additional testing or more aggressive preventive treatment is indicated. Coronary calcium scans aren't routinely recommended if you are already clearly either at very low risk or high risk of developing coronary heart disease, because the calcium score is less likely to lead to additional recommendations or treatment.
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