Relationship between breast arterial calcification on mammography with CT Calcium scoring and coronary CT angiography results

BACKGROUND: Mammography as a non invasive method has been suggested to be helpful in predicting coronary artery disease. This study aimed to investigate whether presence and severity of breast artery calcification (BAC) on mammograms is associated with computed tomography coronary angiography (CTCA) finding such as coronary artery calcium (CAC) score and the severity of coronary artery stenosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed on 150 women aged >40 years who were referred for CTCA. Women who had undergone screening mammography during the first year after CTCA entered the study. CAC score was determined and the severity of coronary artery stenosis was classified into normal, non-significant stenosis, or significant stenosis. Based on the severity of BAC, patients were also grouped into normal, mild, moderate, or severe groups. Then, the correlation between BAC severity and CAC score was determined. Patients with different BAC severity were also compared regarding the relative frequency of different grades of coronary artery stenosis. RESULTS: Mean age of subjects with BAC (n: 35) was significantly higher than patients without BAC (n: 115) (68.03 ± 6.16 versus 54.36 ± 7.63 years, P < 0.0001). Although the relative frequency of different grades of coronary artery stenosis was significantly higher in women with BAC (P < 0.0001), after controlling for age, there was no significant difference between patients with different severity of BAC in the mean of CAC score (P: 0.09). In addition, the correlation between BAC severity and CAC score was not statistically significant (R: 0.09, P: 0.26). CONCLUSION: We concluded that presence and severity of BAC have no significant correlation with CAC score on CTCA.