EVALUATION OF CALCIFICATION OF CORONARY-A RTERIES BY CT

The frequency of coronary artery calcifications was measured in comput er tomograms (CT), and their correlation with risk factors and cardiov ascular diseases already known was investigated. 2,130 CT investigatio ns of the thorax and upper abdomen were evaluated retrospectively with regard to their coronary artery calcifications. All patients suffered from lung disease, 75% of the patients were reffered for CT investiga tion because of a tumor disease. In interest of simplicity we practice d a simple scaling (''uncalcified'', ''moderately uncalcified'', ''sev erly uncalcified'') to evaluate the status of the coronary artery calc ifications. A significant dependence (p <0.05) of arterial calcificati on on cardiovascular risk factors such as age, smoking (n = 1280), vas cular hypertension (n = 118), diabetes mellitus (n = 109), male sex (n = 1703) and relative body weight was found. Alcohol consumption (n = 949), hyperuricemia (n = 82), hypercholesterolemia (n = 82) and hypert riglyceridemia (n = 111) did not have any effect. Irrespective of smok ing habits, a highly significant correlation (p <0.001) could be detec ted between the degree of coronary artery calcification and earlier ca rdiovascular disease documented in the patient record.