coronary artery calcification score as the determinant of coronary artery disease in chronic kidney disease patients: a preliminary study

Background: coronary computed tomography angiography (ccta) is a noninvasive cardiovascular imaging procedure that visualizes coronary artery calcifications (cac), a marker of subclinical atherosclerosis. due to different calcification patterns in patients with chronic kidney disease (ckd) compared to the general population, this study aims to present diagnostic cut-off values for cac to detect early coronary artery disease (cad) in ckd patients.methods: this cross-sectional study included 807 patients: 407 with ckd and 400 controls with normal kidney function who underwent ccta during 2019-2021. cac score measurements were performed for all left main coronary arteries to investigate cad. the coronary artery disease reporting and data system (cad-rads) was used as the gold standard to determine the value of cac, and diagnostic values were measured.results: the number of female patients was 443 (54.9%), and 364 (45.1%) were male. the mean age in the case group was 63.95 ± 10.26 years, and in the control group, it was 53.80 ± 11.84 years. at the cut-off point of 85, the cac score had a sensitivity and specificity of 84.7% and 83%, respectively, among patients with ckd to detect cad (area under the curve (auc): 0.919, 95% ci: 0.89-0.94; p-value < 0.001). considering a cut-point of 85 for cac, the frequency of healthy subjects with cad-rads less than two was significantly higher than the cases (p-value = 0.012), while the two groups were similar regarding cad-rads 3-5 (p-value = 0.83).conclusion: according to this study, the cac score is a valuable means to detect cad among ckd subjects. there is no significant difference in cac between patients with substantial cad-rads in ckd and non-ckd patients. the cut-point of 85 for the cac score was found valuable to diagnose cad with over 80% sensitivity and specificity.