Study of Coronary Arteries in Patients with Chest Pain Using Computerized Tomography

Abstract

Computed tomography CT, is a diagnostic medical test that produces multiple

images of the inside of the body. CT images provide greater details of soft

tissues and blood vessels. A cardiac CT scan for coronary calcium is a

noninvasive screening study for obtaining information about the presence,

location and extent of calcified plaque in the coronary arteries. This study was

performed in the Radiology department of the Royal Scan center and the

Royal Care International Hospital in Khartoum. The main objective of this

study was to evaluate the Calcium score values in patients with chest pain who

were of different risk factors (hypertension, diabetes and smoking) and

different variation of age and weight. The data were collected from 53

patients, 24 (45.3%) females and 29 (54.7%) males. 28(52.8%) were

hypertensive and 16 (30.1%) had preexisting diabetes mellitus and 12(22.6%)

were smokers. Affected coronary arteries and total calcium scoring were

recorded. The Plaque type was classified into soft, mixed and hard according

to the Radiologist diagnosis. The calcium scored values ranged between 0-

≥803 units. The correlation between the calcium score and risk factor was

found to be significant in hypertensive at p value≤ 0.006with no significant

relation was found in other patient groups. The plaque type shows that the

mixed plaque was significantly correlated with calcium score values at

p≤0.046. No significant correlations were found between increasing of

Calcium Score values and aging and obesity. The study concluded that CT

scan has great value in the diagnosis of patients with chest pain and evaluation

of coronary arteries calcium score values. Although the previous studies

showed reverse results, the researcher attributed the study findings to the

limitation of data sampling of the study which should be wider in future studies.