Background and aims: To examine whether there is a difference in coronary artery calcification (CAC) scores between males and females aged above 50 years.
Methods and results: A total of 479 subjects aged between 40 and 70 years with no clinical or family history of cardiovascular disease (CVD) were enrolled for this study. All subjects were assessed by multislice CT scanning (MCTS), and the CAC scores obtained were assigned to one of four quartiles for further assessment and comparison. The main outcome evaluated was the percentage of high CAC scores and mean CAC scores, comparing males and females of different age groups. This study found that the percentage of high CAC scores increased markedly from 5% (40-49 age group) to 21.2% (50-59 age group) among females. The increase was significantly less when comparing males from different age groups (from 25% in the 40-49 age group to 31.2% in the 50-59 age group). Females had higher odds ratios (ORs) postmenopausally (4.3 in the 50-59 age group) than males in the same age group (1.6).
Conclusions: These initial findings seem to indicate that above 50 years of age, CAC is more dependent on age in females than in males, which might be due to the effect of the menopause.