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 That’s because the amount of calcium in the arteries of the breast,
which can be seen on a digital mammogram, seems to reflect the
amount of calcium in the coronary arteries, which supply blood to
the heart.
Although women are commonly screened for breast cancer with
mammography, there is no routine screening test for heart disease.
Calcium in the coronary arteries is known to be an early sign of
heart disease. Finding a link between calcium in the breast arteries
and calcium in the coronary arteries is a reason to “pay attention,”
study coauthor Dr. Jagat Narula from the Icahn School of Medicine at
Mount Sinai in New York City told Reuters Health by email.
Narula and colleagues will report their findings April 3 at the
American College of Cardiology annual scientific session in Chicago
as well as in JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging.
For the study, the Mount Sinai team analyzed heart disease risk
factors, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood
sugar and smoking, in 292 women who underwent both digital
mammography and a chest computed tomography (CT) scan.
They found that 42.5 percent of the women had calcium in their
breast arteries, as shown by digital mammography. Those women were
significantly older and had more high blood pressure and chronic
kidney disease compared with women who didn’t have breast arterial
calcium.
Coronary artery calcium, as shown in the CT scans, was noted in 47.5
percent of the women, who were also significantly older and had more
high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease and diabetes compared
with the women who didn’t have coronary artery calcium.
Subsequent analyses revealed that the presence of breast arterial
calcium was about 70 percent accurate overall in predicting the
presence of calcium in the coronary arteries. Further, it did at
least as well, and in some cases better, than standard risk
predictors at identifying women at high risk of heart disease.
Senior author Dr. Laura Margolies told Reuters Health by email that
after digital mammography, “Women should ask their radiologists if
there was any calcification in their breast arteries. This
information can then be given to their primary care doctors to be
used in conjunction with standard risk factors to determine if
further evaluation (or treatment) would be of benefit.”
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She also noted that seeing images of calcification in the arteries
in the breast could be “the strongest motivator for a woman to take
action to reduce the chances of developing clinically significant
cardiovascular disease.”
Dr. Margolies pointed out that there is always the possibility of
so-called false positives.
“Not all breast arterial calcification is indicative of significant
cardiovascular disease. And people who are already being treated for
cardiovascular disease might not derive any further benefit from
knowing that the arteries in the breast are calcified, too.”
Commenting by email, Dr. Joan Brem, Director of the Breast Imaging
and Interventional Center at George Washington University in
Washington, D.C., said, “This study demonstrates that accurate
cardiovascular risk can be determined by evaluating the extent of
calcification in blood vessels seen on digital mammograms, without
the use of any additional radiation or risk. These exciting findings
will allow women to be screened for the two most frequent
life-threatening diseases at once - breast cancer and cardiovascular
disease - (and allow) for determination of cardiovascular risk in a
large population of women who might otherwise not get this
potentially life-saving information.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1MESUa8 JACC: Imaging, released March 24,
2016.
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