Incidence of Coronary Artery Disease in Patients with a Zero-Calcium Score on Coronary CT Angiography: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Aim: The objective of this study is to determine the incidence of CAD in patients whose Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) results showed that their calcium levels had a score of zero.

Study design:  The study design was a Cross sectional study.

Place and duration of study: This study was conducted at Peoples University of Medical and Health Sciences for Women Shaheed Benazirabad Nawabshah, Pakistan from Marach 2019 to March 2020.

Methodology:  The study population was a total of 90 patients, whose ages ranged from 18 years to 67 years. These patients were advised by their physicians to take a coronary CT angiography due to suspicion of coronary artery disease. The Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) of the patients showed that their calcium levels had a score of zero. Patient diabetes score, their gender and the existence of coronary artery disease were treated as frequency and percentage in the graphical analysis on the SPSS software version 22. The co-founding variables of the study were stratified, and the chi-square test was applied on the cofounding variables after post stratification.

Results: The mean age of the study population was 51.63 ± 7.2 years. The study had 76 males which was 84.4% of the study population and 14 female patients which was 15.5% of the study population. A total of 41 (45.5%) patients had been previously diagnosed with diabetes. The results from the study showed that 7.78% (7) of the patients were diagnosed with CAD. A total of 83 people from the study population (92.2%) had normal coronary arteries.

Conclusion:  The results from the research study concluded that 7.78% (7) of the patients were diagnosed with coronary artery disease and their calcium levels had a score of zero score on their Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) .