Coronary artery calcium scanning in symptomatic patients: Ready for use as a gatekeeper for further testing?

Automated cardiovascular risk categorization through AI-driven coronary calcium quantification in cardiac PET acquired attenuation correction CT

“…Hence, CAC directly demonstrates the presence of the atherosclerotic process and it may help clinicians to identify patients of a higher cardiovascular risk and initiate a medical therapy, as specified in guidelines. [2][3][4]11,[33][34][35] Nevertheless, several patients had a falsenegative result, mostly due to CAC lesions that are not visible on the CTAC scan. Moreover, several falsepositive detections were found in image noise and ring artifacts.…”

“…Coronary artery calcium (CAC) is a marker of atherosclerosis 1 and its presence and the amount increase the risk of any cardiovascular event in symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. [2][3][4] Moreover, the amount of CAC is associated with the likelihood of myocardial ischemia. 5 Traditionally, CAC is scored manually by an expert in dedicated, ECG-triggered, noncontrast, calcium scoring CT (CSCT) scans, following a previously described and strictly defined method.…”

Coronary artery anomalies in patients with zero calcium score: A new evidence supports the 2016-NICE guidance

“…Subsequently NICE updated their guidelines in 2016 and recommended the use of CCTA as the first-line investigation for patients with stable angina and no prior CAD, irrespective of pre-test probability, with second-line functional imaging if required [24]. Ruckel and Gulat, and Rozanski and Berman pointed out that this issue requires prospective evaluation to assess its potential impact on patients' clinical outcomes [25,26]. This study supports the new NICE guidance and emphasize on the importance of prospective evaluation based on serious observation of significant number of young patients with CAA who had a CAC = 0.…”

Measurement of coronary artery calcium volume using ultra-high-resolution computed tomography: A preliminary phantom and cadaver study

“…The CAC score correlates histologically with atherosclerotic plaque formation and it also reflects the total coronary plaque burden [ 2 , 4 , 5 ]. The CAC score is a highly specific marker for arteriosclerosis and integrates all risk factors over the lifetime of an individual [ 2 , 6 , 7 ].…”