Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Aug 26, 2016; 8(8): 481-487
Published online Aug 26, 2016. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v8.i8.481
Relationship between coronary calcium score and high-risk plaque/significant stenosis
Kohichiro Iwasaki, Takeshi Matsumoto
Kohichiro Iwasaki, Takeshi Matsumoto, Department of Cardiology, Okayama Kyokuto Hospital, Okayama 703-8265, Japan
Author contributions: All the authors contributed to this manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Okayama Kyokuto Hospital.
Informed consent statement: All study participants provided informed consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Kohichiro Iwasaki, MD, Department of Cardiology, Okayama Kyokuto Hospital, 567-1, Kurata, Naka-ku, Okayama 703-8265, Japan. kiwasaki@kyokuto.or.jp
Telephone: +81-86-2763231 Fax: +81-86-2741028
Received: April 13, 2016
Peer-review started: May 26, 2016
First decision: June 16, 2016
Revised: June 29, 2016
Accepted: July 14, 2016
Article in press: July 18, 2016
Published online: August 26, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Coronary computed tomographic angiography was performed in 651 patients and these patients were divided into the four groups according to coronary calcium score (CCS): 0, 1-100, 101-400 and > 400. The incidence of high-risk plaque was not significantly different among the three groups, except patients with zero CCS. The incidence of significant stenosis increased stepwise as CCS increased, as did the rate of major coronary event. Therefore, the stepwise increased risk of coronary events associated with increasing CCS is caused by an increasing incidence of significant stenosis, while that of high-risk plaque remains the same.