(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- It is widely known that calcium build-up in the
coronary arteries is a good predictor of heart disease in white patients, but
researchers now say it is also a strong risk factor for several racial and
ethnic groups.
For a median of 3.8 years, researchers followed a sample of 6,722 men and women
who had no history of clinical cardiovascular disease. About 39 percent were
white, 27.6 percent were black, 21.9 percent were Hispanic and 11.9 percent were
Chinese. The researchers found no major differences in the value of calcium
scores on predicting coronary risks among the different racial and ethnic
groups. Of the sample of patients, there were 162 coronary events -- 89 were
major. Overall, when coronary calcium levels doubled, the risk of a major
coronary event increased by 15 percent to 35 percent and for any coronary event,
by 18 percent to 39 percent.
Study authors say previous studies have found coronary calcification differs
substantially among ethnic groups. “Our study suggests that these differences do
not decrease the predictive value of this subclinical marker in American
minority groups,” study authors write. “Our results, in fact, suggest that the
coronary calcium score is valuable for the prediction of future events even in
ethnic groups in which coronary calcification is less prevalent.”
SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine, 2008;358:1336-1345
