CORONARY-ARTERY DIAMETER AND CORONARY RISK-FACTORS - A STUDY WITH ULTRAFAST COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY

Coronary artery dilation has been described as an early effect of athe rosclerosis. No noninvasive technique has been available to measure co ronary size. In this study coronary diameters were measured in 100 asy mptomatic subjects (89 men and 11 women, mean age 40 +/- 6 years) by m eans of ultrafast computed tomography (UFCT), with 3 mm thick ECG gate d scans. Subjects without evidence of coronary calcium were studied. T he diameter of the left main (LD) and right (RD) coronary arteries wer e measured. Total coronary diameter, TD = LD + RD, was determined, and univariate analysis was performed with respect to total, high-density lipoprotein and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, mean blood press ure, age, body surface area, and triglycerides. Mean LD was 4.23 +/- 0 .85 mm, and mean RD was 3.06 +/- 1.08 mm. TD increased with body surfa ce area (p < 0.001). No other variable showed any significant effect o n TD in this group without evidence of atherosclerosis. UFCT can be us ed to noninvasively measure coronary artery diameters and may be a use ful technique to detect early changes of atherosclerosis in individual patients and in population studies.