Coronary artery calcium score above 250 confirms the presence of significant stenosis in coronary CT angiography of symptomatic patients

This study aims to investigate if there are a correlation and statistical significance between different CACS cutoffs and the severity of coronary artery stenosis by coronary CT angiography (CCTA) in symptomatic patients. Methods This is a retrospective study that included all symptomatic patients who had CCTA in a tertiary care hospital over a period of 7 years. Results CCTA of 502 patients was evaluated (406 included, mean age 56.2 years); 230 were males (56.7%). The prevalence of stenosis at any percentage was 53.7%, ≥50% was 26.6% and ≥70% was 12.3%. The mean CACS was 84.5 (range 0–1860), for males was 124.5 and for females was 32.1. Patients with CACS of zero (59%) and CACS of ≥1 (41%) had a mean stenosis of 8.9% (range 0–75%) and 52.6% (range 0–100%), respectively. All patients with a CACS of ≥250 were found to have ≥50% stenosis (100% specificity and positive predictive value, 35.2% sensitivity, 81% negative predictive value and 82.6% accuracy). The percentage of stenosis increased as CACS increased with strong statistical significance (P value 
Source: Coronary Artery Disease - Category: Cardiology Tags: Original Research in CAD Source Type: research