RESEARCH ARTICLE
Coronary Artery Disease in an Asymptomatic Population Undergoing a Multidetector Computed Tomography (MDCT) Coronary Angiography
Ghassan Zaid1, Dana Yehudai1, Uri Rosenschein1, Abdel-Rauf Zeina2, 3, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 4
First Page: 7
Last Page: 13
Publisher ID: TOCMJ-4-7
DOI: 10.2174/1874192401004010007
Article History:
Received Date: 29/12/2009Revision Received Date: 8/1/2010
Acceptance Date: 12/1/2010
Electronic publication date: 29/1/2010
Collection year: 2010

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Aim:
To assess the prevalence of coronary artery disease (CAD) in asymptomatic subjects using multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) and its relationships to demographic and clinical risk factors.
Material and method:
We enrolled consecutive asymptomatic volunteers with no evidence of ischemic heart disease that underwent MDCT for the early detection of CAD. All MDCT findings were correlated with demographic and risk factors. A total of 2820 coro-nary segments were analyzed in 188 asymptomatic subjects (150 males and 38 females), aged 54.4 ± 7.4 years.
Results:
A total of 128 (68%) demonstrated MDCT findings compatible with CAD; of these 111 (86.7%) had non-significant (diameter stenosis ≤ 50%) and 17 (13.3%) had significant CAD (diameter stenosis ≥ 50%). Compared with older subjects (mean age 56±8 years), younger subjects had a lower prevalence of MDCT findings of CAD 55.5% vs. 12.5%, respectively (P<0.001), regardless of risk factors. Males had more CAD (mostly non-significant) compared with females (109 [72.7%] vs. 19 [50.3%], respectively; P= 0.007). Subjects with ≥ 2 risk factors had a higher prevalence of CAD in general and significant CAD in particular (P<0.001).
Conclusion:
CAD in asymptomatic population seems to be not uncommon. Using MDCT a high prevalence of non-significant and low prevalence of significant CAD was discovered in middle age asymptomatic population.