20:T441,We investigated the determinants of maximal intima-media thickness of common carotid arteries in a population-based sample of 1224 Eastern Finnish men aged 42, 48, 54 or 60 years. A high-resolution B-mode ultrasonographic examination was performed as part of the Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study (KIHD). The maximal intima-media thickness (IMT) varied between 0.48 mm and 4.09 mm (mean value +/- SD, 0.94 mm +/- 0.38 mm). Age (standardized partial coefficient, beta = 0.238, P less than 0.0001), ambulatory pulse pressure (beta = 0.130, P less than 0.0001), cigarette-years of smoking (beta = 0.125, P less than 0.0001), serum LDL cholesterol concentration (beta = 0.125, P less than 0.0001), history of ischaemic heart disease (beta = 0.125, P less than 0.0001), pre-exercise systolic blood pressure (beta = 0.070, P = 0.0113) and diabetes (beta = 0.068, P = 0.0072) were most strongly associated with IMT. This study confirms the role of systolic blood pressure, smoking and serum LDL cholesterol levels as major risk factors for increased carotid intima-media thickness.21:T416,The association between soft-tissue calcification (STC) and uremia has been recognized for more than 100 years,¹but it is only since the widespread use of regular dialysis and transplantation that this has become an important problem.² Virchow¹surmised that calcium salts dissolved from bone were carried in the blood and deposited at some distant site to form "calcium metastases," a process analogous to the dissemination of cells from a primary neoplasm. In a review of 88 patients,^"the underlying cause of metastatic calcification was nonmetabolic bone disease in 35, uremia in 23, primary hyperparathyroidism in 21, and vitamin D intoxication in 9. The lesions typically occur in the kidneys, stomach, lungs, and the left side of the heart, supposedly because of relative local alkalinity.⁴The essential feature of metastatic calcification is its occurrence in previously normal tissue exposed to an abnormal chemical environment, in contrast to dystrophic calcification which occurs in22:T5b1,

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