Coronary Calcium Score

Non-contrast ECG-gated CT measuring calcium deposits in the coronary arteries to quantify atherosclerotic plaque burden. The resulting Agatston score stratifies 10-year cardiovascular event risk and guides statin, aspirin, and lifestyle decisions. No fasting, no contrast, no preparation required. Enel-Med (LUX MED Group) Warsaw offers this as part of its cardiac diagnostics programme. Physician referral required.

The coronary artery calcium (CAC) score is among the most clinically informative CT examinations available to asymptomatic adults — it requires no contrast agent, no intravenous access, no fasting, and no special preparation, yet it delivers a cardiac risk stratification that can meaningfully change the probability of a future myocardial infarction or cardiovascular death in intermediate-risk patients. The LUX MED Diagnostyka CT services catalogue explicitly lists cardiac CT — 'tomografia komputerowa serca' — as a core offering at its Warsaw centres, with the LUX MED patient-facing content describing coronary CT as the non-invasive diagnostic alternative to coronary angiography for coronary artery disease assessment. The CAC scan is a subset of cardiac CT that does not require contrast administration, making it suitable for outpatient cardiovascular risk screening in healthy adults. The scan itself acquires ECG-gated images of the heart in a single breath-hold of approximately 10 seconds. The scanner synchronises data acquisition to the cardiac cycle — typically using prospective triggering at 70–80% of the R-R interval — to minimise cardiac motion artefact. Dedicated quantification software then identifies and measures all calcified lesions in each of the four main coronary arteries: the left anterior descending (LAD), left circumflex (LCx), right coronary artery (RCA), and left main (LM). The Agatston score is calculated as the product of calcified lesion area and a density weighting factor, summed across all vessels. A CAC score of zero — found in approximately 40% of intermediate-risk patients — predicts a 10-year major adverse cardiac event rate below 1%, sufficient to reclassify many borderline patients from moderate to low risk and potentially defer statin initiation. Scores of 1–99 indicate mild plaque; 100–399 moderate plaque; 400 and above extensive calcification, each tier carrying stepwise increases in event probability. For patients with scores above 100, treatment intensification — statins, antiplatelet therapy, lifestyle intervention — is strongly supported by European and American prevention guidelines. The LUX MED cardiac CT page notes that cardiac CT can detect post-infarction scarring, coronary narrowings, structural heart defects, aortic aneurysms, and cardiomyopathy features — clinical contexts where the calcium score is often the first investigation before proceeding to coronary CT angiography or invasive coronary angiography. Warsaw cardiologists and internists regularly refer to the network's cardiac CT programme as a structured preventive pathway for executive health screening, pre-operative cardiac clearance, and metabolic syndrome cardiovascular risk assessment. The examination is performed in a single brief visit with no recovery time. Results — a quantitative Agatston score broken down by vessel, a percentile comparison for age and sex (using standard reference cohorts), and a written radiologist report — are available via the LUX MED patient portal and on CD.