Practical Use of the Calcium Coronary Artery (CAC) Score: About 12 Cases and Review of the Literature

Abstract

The coronary artery calcium (CAC) score is a cardiovascular risk feature that is not widely used. It reflects the burden of coronary artherosclerosis of an individual. It is shown in the literrature that the use of the CAC score improves the global cardiovascular risk assesment. The CAC score might lead directly to coronarography if it is very high. We report the case of twelve (12) patients that were at risk of chronic coronary disease but were asymptomatic. They could not go through effort test and benefited from CAC score, then coronarography was directly performed. The calcium score was positive for 11 patients (91.7%). One patient (8.3%) had an intermediate score. Nine (09) patients (75%) had significant lesions, three (03) patients (25%) had no significant lesions despite a positive calcium score and one (01) patient (8.3%) had significant coronary lesions with an intermediate calcium score.