Concomitant atherosclerotic disease detected by whole-body MR angiography in relation to coronary artery calcification in patients with coronary artery disease.

PURPOSE: Patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) show a high prevalence for concomitant atherosclerotic peripheral arterial disease (PAD). On the other hand, PAD seems to be an additional risk factor for cardiac events. We evaluated the correlation between arterial pathologies as found in whole-body MR angiography and coronary artery calcification (CAC) detected by electron beam computed tomography (EBCT) and multislice CT (MSCT). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two hundred and twenty-eight patients (161 men; 67 women) with suspicion for CAD/known CAD underwent whole-body contrast-enhanced MR angiography (wb-ce-MRA) and EBCT/MSCT. An atherosclerosis index was calculated for each patient Index = (40)Sigma(n=1) w(i) with w(i) being the grading of the stenosis of the i (ten) of 40 arteria segments (grade: 0 - no plaque; 1 - plaque - < or = 50 % stenosis; 2 - > 50 % stenosis - < or = 90 % stenosis; 3 - > 90 % stenosis - < 100 % stenosis; 4 - occlusion). Correlations between CAC and atherosclerosis index were performed. RESULTS: Wb-ce MRA and CAC correlate only moderately in this population. An atherosclerosis index 8 renders a positive predictive value for a CAC 100 of 63.3 %. CONCLUSION: An atherosclerosis index as defined in this study does not fully correlate with the extent of CAD as revealed by catheter angiography or EBCT/MSCT, but it might theoretically mirror the increased risk by PAD. It thus might be a promising complementary parameter for the prediction of cardiac events. Future studies need to show its possible additional predictive impact.