Association of Coronary Calcification and Carotid Artery Morphology: A High Resolution Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

qian zhao¹, Xihai Zhao², Feiyu Li², Qingjun Wang¹, Zulong Cai¹, Chun Yuan², Jianming Cai¹

Atherosclerosis has been shown a systematic disease which often involves multiple arterial vascular beds. Recently, a number of studies demonstrated a significant correlation between coronary and carotid atherosclerosis. This study sought to evaluate the association between coronary calcification and carotid artery morphology. The results showed moderate to strong correlation between coronary calcium score detected by CT and carotid morphological measurements by MRI. It indicates that patients with high coronary calcium score may have big plaque burden in carotid arteries. Coronary calcium score as a marker of coronary disease is potentially capable of predicting carotid atherosclerosis.