Coronary Calcification

THE NEED for methods to detect and measure atherosclerotic lesions in the coronary arteries before the onset of clinical manifestations of coronary heart disease is well recognized by clinicians and epidemiologists.' Since coronary artery lesions are the principal factors in coronary heart disease, they should be more strongly correlated with clinical disease than are the commonly used risk factors such as serum lipid levels, blood pressure, smoking habits, family history, and glucose tolerance. In addition, if the prevalence and extent of coronary artery lesions could be determined in the living, the relationship of these "risk" factors to the arterial lesions could be examined more closely in epidemiologic studies. Although coronary angiography has been developed to measure coronary stenosis and is being used successfully for diagnosis, this method is not yet applicable on a large scale nor is it suitable for screening purposes. Calcified lesions are the only lesions of atherosclerosis that can be detected in the living patient without significant risk. The possibility of assessing atherosclerosis in the living patient by detecting calcification in the arteries roentgenographically has been investigated by several workers.2 1 Clinical studies of calcified lesions in the coronary arteries by