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(Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. 2006;26:429.)
© 2006 American Heart Association, Inc.

Letters to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

Quantification of Abdominal Aortic Calcification on CT

Rumal W. Jayalath; Peter Jackson; Jonathan Golledge

From the Vascular Biology Unit, School of Medicine (R.W.J., J.G.), James Cook University, and the Departments of Radiology (P.J.) and Vascular Surgery (J.G.), the Townsville Hospital, Townsville, Australia.

Correspondence to Jonathan Golledge, Director, the Vascular Biology Unit, School of Medicine, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia. E-mail Jonathan.Golledge@jcu.edu.au

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

To the Editor:

Calcification of the coronary arteries is associated with cardiovascular end-point, such as myocardial infarction, stroke, and vascular death.¹ Techniques for quantifying vascular calcification in patients, particularly in arteries outside the chest, are not routinely available.² In this prospective study, we examined whether CT angiography (CTA) could be used to reproducibly measure severity of infrarenal abdominal aortic calcification. The study involved 50 consecutive patients undergoing aortic CTA for investigation of peripheral vascular disease or aortic aneurysm in 3 stages.

For the initial 14 patients, sequential plain and contrast-enhanced CT were obtained and then analyzed on a workstation using 5 different thresholds to define aortic calcification. The calcification volumes were assessed using a number of nonparametric statistical tests to compare clinical measurements to define the most appropriate threshold by which ca lcification should be measured on CTA by comparison with CT.

For the next 24 patients, CTA alone was obtained and analyzed with the threshold defined as optimal from part 1 of the study. The calcification volume measurements were performed by one observer using three different workstation protocols: (1) manual threshold setting without image magnification, (2) manual threshold setting with twice image magnification, and (3) automatic threshold setting with twice image magnification.

To assess the most appropriate protocol, the readings were repeated on a second occasion 24 hours apart by the same observer, and the intraobserver reproducibility was assessed by nonparametric statistical tests.

Having defined the most appropriate thresholds and workstation settings to analyze the calcification volume on CTA, . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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