%0 Journal Article
%T Coronary artery calcium (CAC) score ¨C a prognostic tool in coronary artery disease?
%A Livia Leherbauer
%A Charlotte Sonneck-Koenne
%A Seyed Rasoul Zakavi
%A Diana Haoula
%J Iranian Journal of Nuclear Medicine
%D 2011
%I 
%X Introduction: The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of measurement of coronary artery calcification score (CAC) in patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) and a normal myocardial perfusion scan.Methods: In a prospective study we measured the calcium score of 74 patients (29 m, 45 f, mean age 58.7 (m) and 64.4 (f)) with suspicion of CAD and a normal perfusion scan. In all patients a pharmacological stress myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) with dipyridamole was performed. Both the myocardial perfusion scintigraphy and calcium scoring were performed on a T6 Symbia gamma camera (Siemens, Knoxville, USA). Attenuation correction was performed using a low dose CT.Results: The mean total CAC score was 182.6¡À435.7 and ranged from 0 -2309. 21/29 of the male patients (72%) and 17/45 of the female patients (38%) had an Agatston score of > 10. There were 9 cases (5m, 4f) with a calcium score of > 400 and 3 cases (2m, 1f) with a calcium score > 1000. No cardiac event was noted in these patients during a mean follow up time of 10.3 months (range 7-13 months, median 11 months) except one cardiac death of a patient with total Agatston score of 278. Seven patients also underwent angiography because of their clinical symptoms, 4 of which (57%) had an elevated Agatston score.Conclusion: Our study showed that calcium score measurement accompanied with SPECT imaging is feasible in routine myocardial perfusion imaging with SPECT/CT machines. Calcium score measurement in patients with normal stress myocardial perfusion scintigraphy, may be useful in risk stratification of the patients. Further prospective studies with larger patient numbers and longer follow-up time are needed to find out the impact of this advantage by hybrid imaging.
%K Coronary artery disease
%K Myocardial perfusion imaging
%K Coronary artery calcification score
%U http://irjnm.tums.ac.ir/index.php/irjnm/article/view/709/666