Subclinical atherosclerosis in multiple vascular beds: an index of atherosclerotic burden evaluated in postmenopausal women

Menopausal Hot Flashes and Carotid Intima Media Thickness Among Midlife Women

“…Additionally, for each segment the degree of plaque was graded using the following criteria: Grade 0=no observable plaque; grade 1=one small plaque (<30% of the vessel diameter); grade 2=one medium plaque (30–50% of the vessel diameter) or multiple small plaques; grade 3=one large plaque (>50% of the vessel diameter) or multiple plaques with at least one medium plaque. The grades from all segments of the combined left and right carotid artery were summed to create the plaque index, 28 which was categorized as 0, 1, or ≥2 for analysis. Between sonographers agreement for carotid plaque assessment was good to excellent (kappa statistic, κ=0.78).…”

A Greater Reduction in High-Frequency Heart Rate Variability to a Psychological Stressor is Associated With Subclinical Coronary and Aortic Calcification in Postmenopausal Women

“…We assessed factors that have been associated with coronary and aortic calcification and with HF-HRV in prior reports (e.g., [31][32][33]. Specific factors assessed at the time of psychological stress testing included age, current smoking status (coded as 0 ϭ nonsmoker and 1 ϭ current smoker), baseline SBP and DBP, BMI, current use of hormone therapy (HT; coded as 0 ϭ nonHT user and 1 ϭ current HT user), education level (coded as 0 ϭ a high school degree or less; 1 ϭ an associate degree, vocational training, or some college education; 2 ϭ a 4-year college degree; and 3 ϭ a graduate degree), and kilocalories per week spent in leisure physical activity (assessed by the Paffenbarger Activity Questionnaire (35)).…”

Correlation between coronary and valve calcification: Review of current evidence

“…In most studies, calcification seems to appear first in the coronary artery in younger adults but could be more prevalent in the aorta in the elderly, suggesting that age is a stronger risk factor for aortic calcification. Nevertheless, a higher prevalence of early aortic and carotid calcification in asymptomatic women has been reported, suggesting that in younger women the measurement of aortic, particularly abdominal aortic, rather than coronary calcium may provide the earliest and most accurate evaluation of the underlying atherosclerotic burden 54,55 .…”

“…Because the contributors to calcification in each artery may be different 57 , it has been suggested that an index of measures may provide a more consistent association with risk factors than any individual measure of calcification 58 . Nevertheless, several authors have pointed out that since CAC is almost always found in the intima, while calcification in other arteries may be found in either the intima or the media, the summation of the calcium scores may not be a fair comparison of extent of calcification between arteries since intimal calcification cannot be differentiated from medial calcification on any scanning modality.…”