Calcification in the Abdominal Aorta and Common Iliac Artery

Sun, Woo Young; Jang, Lee Chan

Abstract

PURPOSE: Calcification in the abdominal aorta and common iliac artery is frequently seen in patients who have atherosclerosis. This study was carried out to determine the prevalence and amount of calcification and understand the clinical meaning of the calcification in those areas. METHOD: We reviewed the multidetector computerized tomography of 3,993 patients who visited Chungbuk National University Hospital for one year (2007). We examined the abdominal aorta and common iliac artery divided into four areas and we scored the calcification from 0 to 5 in each area. We classified the study population into five groups (A=0, B=1~5, C=6~10, D=11~15, E=16~20) according to the calcification index (CI), which was defined as the sum of the calcification score of the 4 areas. RESULT: One thousand three hundred ninety four patients (34.9%) were included in Group A and the number of patients in Groups B, C, D and E was 1,375 (34.5%), 869 (12.7%), 312 (7.8%) and 43 (1.1%), respectively. Calcification in men was more prevalent than that in women (71.3% vs 56.6%, respectively), (P<0.05). Anatomically, the lower half of the infrarenal aorta was the severest site of calcification (CI: 1.2+/-1.3), followed by the common iliac artery (1.1+/-1.2), the upper half of the infrarenal aorta (0.8+/-1.1) and the abdominal aorta above the renal artery (0.7+/-0.9) (P<0.05). The calcification index was statistically significantly increased in the presence of hypertension (3.6+/-4.1 vs 6.4+/-4.5), diabetes mellitus (3.6+/-4.2 vs 6.0+/-3.8), chronic renal failure (3.7+/-4.2 vs 7.6+/-5.2), coronary heart disease (3.7+/-4.2 vs 6.5+/-4.7) and cerebral artery disease (3.7+/-4.2 vs 7.9+/-4.3), (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: Calcification was found in 90% of the patients older than 60 and it was more prevalent with increasing age. Calcification above a CI of 11 appeared in 8.8% of the total patients.