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Question:
Can a coronary calcium score be correlated with age?
Can you put a low CAC in context with age? And can coronary calcium be stopped once it starts, or does it keep snowballing?
I mean, if a teenager or 25 year old had a low (non zero) score that would probably still not be good. If a 75 year old had a low non-zero score, i.e., 25 or <, probably would be terrific. What about people in the 40-50 age range who don't have zero scores, but are low, i.e., in 1-20 range?
submitted by Rick from Pennsylvania on 3/23/2017
Answer:
by Texas Heart Institute cardiologist, Michael J. Mihalick, MD
Dear Rick,
Coronary calcium is a marker of atherosclerosis in the healing phase. The calcium deposits themselves do not cause obstruction but are statistically associated with it. Very high scores do not correlate because the are due to a different process. A calcium score is a risk factor like cholesterol. When added to other risk factors, it can raise or lower an individual's risk calculation (e.g., help decide whether or not to prescribe a statin drug). Since it is a marker of healing, serial increases are hard to interpret.
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Updated March 2017
