Coronary Artery Calcium Scoring In Cardiovascular Risk Assessment

Background : Identification of patients at risk of future coronary artery disease(CAD)events traditionally relies on scoring tools which take demographic and clinical characteristics into account(e.g,the Framingham risk score and the Heart Score in Europe)?Although these scoring tools have been shown to have a good predictive value,they may still fail to recognize a proportion of patients with coronary atherosclerosis at risk for future CAD events?A large amount of data is available supporting the clinical value of the noninvasive assessment of coronary artery calcium score(CACS)?Objective : Aim of this review is to provide an overview of the literatures regarding the prognostic value of CACS assessment ? In addition,other potential applications of CACS assessment as well as the limitations of the technique are discussed?Methods : To collect researches from 1985 to June 2010 by computer from Pubmed?English search terms:coronanry artery calcium scorig,cardiovascular risk assessment,risk stratification?Results : A large amount of data supports the use of CACS assessment to improve risk stratification ? CACS assessment may be particularly valuable in asymptomatic individuals at intermediate risk ?...