Coronary artery calcium data and reporting system: Strengths and limitations

Coronary artery calcium data and reporting system (CAC-DRS) is a recently introduced standardized reporting system for calcium scoring on computed tomography. CAC-DRS provides four risk categories (0, 1, 2 and 3) along with treatment recommendations for each category. As with any other new reporting platform, CAC-DRS has both advantages and disadvantages. Improved communication, better clarity of details, organized management recommendations and utility in future research and education are the major strengths of CAC-DRS. It has many limitations such as questionable need for a new system, few missing components, use of a less accurate visual method and treatment suggestions based on expert opinion instead of clinical trials. In this contemporary review, we discuss the new reporting system CAC-DRS, its application, strengths and limitations and conclude with some remarks for the future.