Heart Calcium Scans Help Borderline-Risk Patients Most — SkimNews
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- Northwestern Medicine researchers tracked more than 6,000 adults aged 45–79 for a decade and found that adding a coronary artery calcium score to the PREVENT calculator lifted overall prediction accuracy only modestly — the model's discrimination rose from 0.73 to 0.75.
- For the roughly 3%–9% ten-year risk group (borderline or intermediate), however, the scan produced a more meaningful improvement in predicting who would actually have a heart attack or stroke, helping clarify statin decisions.
- Dr. Nilay Shah, the study's senior author, warned that routinely scanning low-risk adults brings unnecessary radiation exposure, testing, and costs without changing treatment, while scanning high-risk patients is also redundant because statins are recommended regardless of the score.
- Over the study's 10-year follow-up, 6% of participants experienced a heart attack or stroke, and the data came from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.
- The findings, published Aug. 26 in JAMA, support PREVENT's standalone predictive strength — even without a calcium scan, the new calculator performed well.
- Shah flagged that more research is needed in higher-risk populations such as South Asian and Filipino adults, and in people younger than 45, who were outside the study cohort.
Why it matters: For borderline-risk adults whose statin decision is genuinely unclear, a single CT scan meaningfully sharpened 10-year cardiovascular predictions, while routine scanning of clearly low- or high-risk adults adds radiation exposure and cost without changing treatment.
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