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(Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. 2007;27:1220.)
© 2007 American Heart Association, Inc.

Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

Gender Differences in Coronary Arteries and Thoracic Aorta Calcification

Khurram Nasir; Ariel Roguin; Ammar Sarwar; John A. Rumberger; Roger S. Blumenthal

From the Cardiac MR PET CT Program (K.N., A.S.), Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School; the Ciccarone Preventive Cardiology Center (K.N., A.R., R.S.B.), Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md; and the Division of Cardiology (J.A.R.), The Ohio State University, Columbus.

Correspondence to Khurram Nasir, MD MPH, Cardiac MR PET CT Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School 165 Charles River Plaza 400, Boston, MA 02114. E-mail knasir@partners.org

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

Calcifications are part of the development of atherosclerosis; they occur exclusively in atherosclerotic arteries and are absent in the normal vessel wall.¹ Studies have demonstrated calcification in both coronaries and aortic arteries to be a specific marker of underlying atherosclerosis in the respective vascular beds.¹ Extensive evidence exist that men are more likely to have calcification in the coronary arteries^2,3; however, whether similar difference exists in other vascular beds is not well established. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the lower risk of atherosclerosis observed in coronary circulation in women compared with men is also observed in thoracic aorta.

This is a cross-sectional study on a consecutive sample of 8549 asymptomatic individuals (69% men, mean age: 52±9 years) patients who presented to a single EBT scanning facility for CHD risk stratification.⁴ A history of cigarette smoking was considered present if a subject was a current or former smoker. Dyslipidemia was coded as present for any individual self-reporting a history of high total cholesterol, high LDL, low HDL, and/or high triglycerides, or current use of lipid-lowering therapy. Patients were considered to have diabetes if they reported using oral hypoglycemic agents, insulin sensitizers, or subcutaneous insulin and hypertension if they reported a history of high blood pressure or used antihypertensive medications. A family history of CHD was considered premature if the immediate family (parents or siblings) experienced a fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction before age of 55 years. Individuals with BMI 30 kg/m² were considered as obese. This . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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