CT Cardiac Calcium Score

donymo

I had a CT Cardiac Calcium Score and have not had my followup appointment with my cardiologist yet.

My doc is not an athlete, so I thought I throw this out to the team and see if a doc here can give an opinion.



My score is 90 (33 LAD, 57 RCA, 0 LM, 0 CX).

The summary of the test results say something that concerns me: "90% of individuals like me (age, sex, ethnicity) have less coronary calcium than me".....and...."My calculated vascular age is 67" (I am 49, thus the concern).

It also says "The Framingham risk assessment indicates that the 10 year-risk of a cardiovascular event in this patient is 2%", which sounds good.

Should I be concerned?

Mark Maurer

Hi Don, It's good you're doing research on this before you go back to see the cardiologist. I don't have an answer for you but I had something similar happen to me a couple of years ago. I had a physical less than a week after doing an IM. There was an enzyme that was high that indicated liver damage. However, that particular enzyme also indicates muscle damage. I didn't talk to the doctor after the results came in because the nurse called me first and she was pretty excited about it. I did some research and called her back and told her what I found out and she dismissed my findings and scheduled me for another test a couple of weeks later. I went back in and met with the doctor, who is a sports medicine specialist, and he was unaware of the connection but took me at my word since I'd been seeing him for a long time and he knows my history. The tests that time came back normal. So if you don't get any feedback here then do some poking around on the web to see if there's anything about cardiac calcium levels in athletes.

dunnahoot

Hey y'all. I'll jump onto this thread. I paid $79 out of pocket for my first CT Calcium Score yesterday afternoon. I was provided a copy of the report and had to sit down in the waiting room to digest the result; 607.4. The ranges are 0 = no calcification identified, 1-10 = minimal, 11-100 = mild, 101-400 = moderate, and 401 and above = Significant Calcification. I then drove to the park for my 70-minute OS run where, for 7.5 miles as the sun was setting I was fully expecting calcified fragments to break away, causing me to croak alongside the crushed granite trail and not be found until rigidity had set in the next morning. So, last night I texted an old friend who's husband is a cardiologist. Apparently elevated scores are common among men over 55 (I'm 58). Furthermore, this does not mean it is inevitable that I'll have a heart attack. It is only one variable among others such as high cholesterol (I've been on a statin for >10 years), family history, hypertension, smoking, etc. He says not to be overly alarmed regarding this one test and wait until I meet again with the cardiologist.



I got this test as one step recommended by my cardiologist Thursday morning. I wore a holter monitor 24 hours (including during my 2017 OS Thursday night trainer ride) and have an echocardiogram scheduled 12/27 before returning for my followup visit 12/29.



There were two reasons for my visit to the cardiologist:

1. I've taken my resting HR nearly every morning for probably 20+ years, and noticed only in the past 2-3 months that it skips beats and has gotten slower (40 this morning yet typically 45-48 whereas 52-56 had been the standard). The office EKG showed that I am experiencing PVC's (premature ventricular contractions) which means the chamber receives the signal to pump but the HR is so slow it isn't ready to contract again, so the EKG just shows a tiny wave and waits until the next one for the full PQRST wave pattern.

2. I am registered for IMAZ 2017 (my 5th IM) and recently joined EN for a different/structured training approach in hopes of crushing my previous PR (established in my first IM that was also my only other IMAZ race). I want a level of comfort in knowing speed work and VO2Max intervals are safe, and I want to make certain I am not among the category of endurance athletes that are prone to exercise induced sudden death. Apparently there's a test for this.



I'll respond back with findings after the followup visit.