LOS ANGELES – according to a cardiologist who urged that endocrinologists embrace the tests when appropriate and use them to inform treatment decisions.
Dr. Matthew J. Budoff
In the big picture, “you might want to think of this as the mammogram of the heart,” said Matthew J. Budoff, MD, professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, in a presentation at the annual scientific & clinical congress of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.
“If we find a lot of plaque, we act on it,” Dr. Budoff said. “If we don’t, we reassure [patients] and test them down the road.”
According to Dr. Budoff, research confirms that the tests correlate with plaque progression and atherosclerotic burden and offer important insight into treatment decisions for diabetes. “Not all people with diabetes have atherosclerosis, and not all deserve the same therapy,” he said.
In other words, not every patient with diabetes needs to be on the same regimen, such as a statin.
Dr. Budoff pointed to recent research that revealed coronary artery calcium (CAC) scores of zero Agatston units are signs of excellent cardiac health in terms of clogged arteries – regardless of whether a patient is diabetic or not.
“Even patients with a score of zero in the setting of diabetes do very well,” said Dr. Budoff, who normally wouldn’t recommend a statin for those patients even though they have diabetes. “If you see a person without coronary calcium, their cardiovascular death rate is really, really low. Maybe you don’t have to be as aggressive with atherosclerosis. You can wait 5 years after a score of zero and reassess the risk.”
And this advice holds up regardless of the gender, age, or ethnicity of a patient.
However, Dr. Budoff cautioned against waiting too long for another assessment. “I don’t think we want to wait 10 years. A lot of things change over a decade: Our blood pressure and LDL cholesterol go up, our triglycerides and [hemoglobin] A1Cs go up – our risk factors progress with age. I’d encourage you to not wait more than 5 years to retest [a patient] to see what’s going on.”
What if a CAC score is higher than zero? A score of more than 100 is a danger signal, Dr. Budoff said. “No matter how you look at the data, a patient with a high score has higher risk of cardiovascular death or dying in general.” This is especially true among women with diabetes for reasons that are not clear.
What to do if a patient’s score is over 100? “Get them on a baby aspirin and on a statin,” he said.
CAC scores lower than 100 are less worrisome in older people and more worrisome in younger people. An age-adjusted score of 5 in a 45-year-old woman, for example, is a cause for concern because any atherosclerosis is a problem at that age.
“If they have some plaque in their coronaries at age 40 or 45, it will grow over time,” he added.
Dr. Budoff offered other insights into CAC and diabetes.
First, based on CAC scores, asymptomatic, middle-aged patients with type 1 diabetes don’t seem to be at higher risk of coronary artery disease than the general population. About 70% of 1,205 patients followed for an average of 11 years had a CAC score of zero, according to findings from a study led by Dr. Budoff (JACC Cardiovasc Imaging. 2019 Mar 8. doi: 10.1016/j.jcmg.2019.01.014).
However, positive scores translate to more risk, and “the higher the score, the higher the risk,” he emphasized.
Second, CAC screening by itself can be a motivator for lifestyle changes in people with diabetes. A randomized, controlled trial reported in 2011 found that patients who were told about their scores improved on several health measures, including blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and weight (J Am Coll Cardiol. 2011 Apr 12;57[15]:1622-32).
“They were [more] willing to take their medicines. They lost weight, and they were better at diet and exercise,” Dr. Budoff said. “Showing them a calcium score and what it means was a big motivation.”
The study also found major reductions in medication and procedure cost among patients who got the CAC results. About half of them had a CAC score of zero, he said, and that means “we’re not going to run them on a treadmill or put them on a statin.”
Dr. Budoff reported receiving grant funding from GE Healthcare.