Coronary Artery Calcium Score Predicts Long-Term Cardiovascular Outcomes in Asymptomatic Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

Abstract

Of the recruited patients, 96.8% had one or more risk factors. The distribution of CAC scores was as follows: CAC=0 in 24.2% of the patients, 0 ＜CAC ≤ 100 in 41.5%, 100 ＜CAC ≤ 400 in 20.3%, CAC ＞400 in 14.7%. The multivariable predictor of increased CAC included age (years) (odds ratio, 1.07; 95% confidence interval, 1.06-1.08), male sex (1.82; 1.54-2.17), duration (years) of T2DM (1.07; 1.05-1.09), and multiple risk factors (1.94; 1.28-2.95). Increasing severity of CAC was associated with higher all-cause or cardiac mortality and higher incident cardiovascular events. The HRs for cardiac death or major cardiac events in CAC ＞400 vs CAC=0 were 8.67 and 10.52, respectively ( p＜0.001) Conclusion: CAC scoring provides better prognostication of cardiovascular outcome than traditional risk factors in asymptomatic T2DM patients, and may allow identifying a high-risk subset for enhancing primary prevention.