CORONARY CALCIUM SCORE AND MORTALITY: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract

The coronary artery calcium score (CAC) is a complementary test used to stratify cardiovascular risk. It is currently performed using non-contrast computed tomography, which through images makes it possible to identify and quantify areas of calcification of coronary atherosclerosis plaques and thereby identify patients with a greater probability of future cardiovascular involvement. The objective of this review was to assess how the increase in CAC levels relates to all-cause mortality. A search for previous works was performed on the National Library of Medicine (PubMed) and Virtual Health Library (VHL) platforms and a total of 29 scientific articles were included after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. Through the studies analyzed, populations with high rates of coronary calcification have lower survival and higher mortality rates compared to groups with lower scores. Regarding the other extreme, CAC = 0 proved to be an important protective factor. In conclusion, the CAC is valuable both for predicting events of coronary origin and mortality, and for adding important information to traditional risk scores that can help in clinical decisions of greater relevance for these patients.