Calcium test? - High Cholesterol Message Board

janeslk · 10-13-2005, 09:43 AM

This morning I read an account of a 50-year-old man who was determined to avoid an early death by heart attack. His father had suffered one in his 50's and eventually died a few years later from another attack. This man had started exercising and eating healthy foods while in his teens. He did not have high cholesterol for most of his life and never smoked or drank to excess. He decided to have a full battery of tests to determine his risk. He passed the treadmill test with flying colors and his overall fitness score was an 81.

However, when he met with his doctor he discovered his cholesterol had increased to 266 in the past few years and triglycerides were 315. But for him the killer was the coronary calcium score, which indicated plaque build-up in two heart arteries. His reading was 452. A reading over 400 is considered "severe", 101-400 is considered "moderate", 11-101 is "mild" and 1-10 is "minimal". He had a 10 percent risk of having a heart attack in the next year and if left untreated the risk will only increase, according to the article. He said the calcium or plaque reading cannot be helped by anything, but he has to take steps to keep it from getting worse. His doctor ordered prescription niacin based on other abnormalities found in a later more-advanced blood test.

My question is: What in the heck is a coronary calcium test? Is it the level of calcium shown on the standard cholesterol test or is it something else that I can request for my husband. His father had a heart attack when he was in his mid 60's. My husband is 53. A CT scan five years ago showed a little plaque build-up in one artery, but nothing serious.

Jane

JJ · 10-13-2005, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janeslk

This morning I read an account of a 50-year-old man who was determined to avoid an early death by heart attack. His father had suffered one in his 50's and eventually died a few years later from another attack. This man had started exercising and eating healthy foods while in his teens. He did not have high cholesterol for most of his life and never smoked or drank to excess. He decided to have a full battery of tests to determine his risk. He passed the treadmill test with flying colors and his overall fitness score was an 81.

However, when he met with his doctor he discovered his cholesterol had increased to 266 in the past few years and triglycerides were 315. But for him the killer was the coronary calcium score, which indicated plaque build-up in two heart arteries. His reading was 452. A reading over 400 is considered "severe", 101-400 is considered "moderate", 11-101 is "mild" and 1-10 is "minimal". He had a 10 percent risk of having a heart attack in the next year and if left untreated the risk will only increase, according to the article. He said the calcium or plaque reading cannot be helped by anything, but he has to take steps to keep it from getting worse. His doctor ordered prescription niacin based on other abnormalities found in a later more-advanced blood test.

My question is: What in the heck is a coronary calcium test? Is it the level of calcium shown on the standard cholesterol test or is it something else that I can request for my husband. His father had a heart attack when he was in his mid 60's. My husband is 53. A CT scan five years ago showed a little plaque build-up in one artery, but nothing serious.

Jane

Jane..I think 3 years ago I saw Oprah take one on her show, it was an image type test. Now that I think of it, I believe she did one of those full body scans.

At that time she had a very small amount of calcium buildup. Outside of that, I really don't know how they do it, but would assume it would be something like she had done. I'm sure someone with more info. about it can help U....

janeslk · 10-13-2005, 02:29 PM

Thanks, JJ. I think it must be something like that because he mentioned something later about imaging. I think what threw me was the listing of a score for the test. I thought it might be some sort of blood measurement. I wonder how much a test like that would run. It would seem to be more indicative of actual heart problems and the probability of a heart attack.

Jane

JJ · 10-13-2005, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janeslk

Thanks, JJ. I think it must be something like that because he mentioned something later about imaging. I think what threw me was the listing of a score for the test. I thought it might be some sort of blood measurement. I wonder how much a test like that would run. It would seem to be more indicative of actual heart problems and the probability of a heart attack.

Jane

I'll be honest, I forgot how much they said it costs on Oprah, but it ain't cheap. Hubby has to go to his cardio man in a couple of weeks, I am going to ask him about some of these tests. I know hubby got a Mibi test done in Jan., but although it shows any blockage, I'm not sure it shows calcium deposits. His dr. is great, as U can ask him anything and he will take time to explain things, so if I find out before someone else who might know, I will let ya know what he says. They make ya crazy some times with all this medical talk, about what can show what, plus they change their minds every 6 months. I know the Mibi tests are fairly new also. I did a web search on it and was surprised at the size of the machine, as I wasn't in the room when hubby had it done. Very impressive.

Have a good one, and will TTYL....

Jane, I did a web search for calcium deposit heart tests and came up with this from part of an article:
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In the March 19 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology , researchers using results from electron-beam tomography (EBT) scans found that people with diabetes were 70 percent more likely to have significant calcium deposits in their arteries. They also found that in general, young diabetics already have calcium buildup similar to that of older people without diabetes.

EBT provides X-ray images similar to, but more detailed than, those obtained from CT scanning. It is particularly useful for detecting calcium deposits in the arteries, which are associated with the development of heart disease.
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Try doing the web search, sems to be quite a few articles. Hope this helps some.....

Lenin · 10-14-2005, 07:01 AM

jane,

It's a CT scan of the heart that tabulates the amount of calcium in the hard plaque in the coronary arteries. It's not the GOLDEN test for plaque by any means and tends to scare a lot of people with false positives. Primarily for this reason, it isn't paid for by most insurance companies...many of those positives often mean many unnecessary angiograms.

One of the biggest problems that only big old plaques (often the most stable) are calcified and the very dangerous and unstable soft plaques made mostly of fatty cholesterol deposits go unnoticed.

If I were symptomless but got a high calcium score, I'd probaly opt for a stress test with nuclear markers. If I had any angina symptoms on top of the rotten calcium score, I'd opt for an angiogram.