Correlation between Coronary Calcium Score and risk of Artery Disease in presence of Conventional Cardiac Risk Factors

Purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between calcium score and risk of coronary artery disease in presence of conventional cardiac risk factors. Introduction: Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) remains the number one cause of mortality in both men and women worldwide. Literature review: Literature review reveals that Coronary arteries supply oxygen-containing blood to the heart muscles. When calcified plaques narrows /blocks arteries, an oxygen rich blood cannot reach the heart muscles. It can cause angina and heart attacks. This blockage even can lead to sudden death if immediate treatment is not given to those patients. A cardiac Computed Tomography (CT) scan for coronary calcium is a non-invasive way of obtaining information about presence, location and extent of these calcified plaques in the coronary arteries. Methods: Convenient based sampling procedure was adopted at National Medical Centre, Karachi. Questionnaires were distributed among five hundred patients. Among those, only thirty patients whose coronary calcium score was zero were selected for the research. However, they had more than one risk factor. Results: While CT angiography of those thirty patients was done it was observed that only two patients had blockage in their coronary arteries. Rest of them have absolutely normal coronaries. Conclusions: The study concludes by accepting null hypothesis, which states that low calcium score correlates with low risk of coronary artery diseases despite of presence of conventional risk factors and by rejecting alternatives. The amount of calcium detected on cardiac CT scan is a helpful prognostic tool for CAD. There is a general concept that only those patients can develop CAD who have conventional cardiac risk factors, for example high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, smoking and positive family history of CAD. However, as for as observation are concerned this is not always true. Many patients have more than one risk factors some times all, but their coronary arteries are normal and many patients have no risk factors at all but they have significant blockage in their coronary arteries.