Visual coronary artery calcification score to predict significant coronary artery stenosis in patients presenting with cardiac arrest without ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction

TL;DR

A visual coronary artery calcification score from chest CT scans can help identify patients after cardiac arrest who may benefit from emergency heart procedures.

Contribution

The study introduces a VCAC score from chest CT to predict significant coronary artery stenosis in non-STEMI cardiac arrest patients.

Findings

A VCAC score ≥4 predicted significant coronary artery stenosis with high sensitivity and specificity.

The VCAC score ≥5 predicted culprit lesions and PCI with strong accuracy.

Non-dedicated CT scans can provide useful data for selecting patients for emergency angiograms.

Abstract

Emergency coronary angiogram after a cardiac arrest without ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is still a matter of debate. To better select patients who may benefit from this procedure, we tested a visual coronary artery calcification (VCAC) score available in chest CT to predict significant coronary artery stenosis and/or culprit lesion or ad hoc or delayed percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).

A total of 113 patients with cardiac arrest and without STEMI who had a coronary angiogram and chest CT (January 2013 to March 2023, Croix-Rousse Hospital, Lyon, France) were retrospectively included. VCAC was scored from 0 (no calcification) to 3 (diffuse calcification) for each 4 four main arteries (left main, left anterior descending, circumflex, and right coronary artery). At baseline the median [interquartile range] age was 65.8 years [53.4–75.7], 61.9% were male, and 59.3% presented with ventricular fibrillation. Coronary angiogram identified at least one significant coronary artery stenosis in 32.7%, and ad hoc and delayed PCI were performed in 12.4% and 6.2% of the patients, respectively. VCAC score was an excellent predictor of significant coronary artery stenosis with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.95 (95%CI [0.90-1.00]) and the optimal threshold was ≥ 4 (specificity 94.7%, sensitivity 91.9%). For the detection of culprit coronary artery stenosis, the AUC was at 0.90 (95%CI [0.85–0.96]) and the optimal threshold was ≥ 5 (specificity 83.5%, sensitivity 87.5%). The AUC was 0.886 [0.823–0.948] (specificity 81.8%, sensitivity 85.7%) for ad hoc PCI and 0.921 [0.872–0.972] (specificity 85.3%, sensitivity 88.9%) for both delayed and ad hoc PCI with a same optimal threshold of VCAC ≥ 5. A VCAC score ≥ 4 had a sensitivity at 100% to predict a significant or culprit coronary artery stenosis and ad hoc or delayed PCI.

The present study found that a non-dedicated CT thorax may be useful to measure VCAC and if this is scored ≥ 4 it allows physicians to better select patients resuscitated from cardiac arrest with non-STEMI and without history of coronary artery disease who may benefit from an emergency coronary angiogram to detect a significant or culprit coronary artery stenosis and had PCI if appropriate.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13613-025-01423-5.

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