Does anyone know the Agatston Coronary Calcium Score Guidelines?

Posted by ewei6911 @ewei6911, Apr 19 12:18pm

Does anyone know the Agatston Coronary Calcium Score Guidelines?
I recently had a CT Angio Heart, and Coronary Artery Scan done. The results included my Agatston Calcium score of 1055.8 and that it was in the 99 percentile for a female of 81 y.o. Agatston guidelines shows any score over 300 is a higher risk for severe coronary artery disease, but yet I am in the 99 percentile for a woman of my age??? What does that mean??? Any comments would be appreciated.

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heart2025 | @heart2025 | Dec 26, 2025
Fear does not heal. All of these pages feature amazing people who are afraid and concerned about the results from heart tests. My Ca+ 1200. 70 yo .So what to do? I am eating better and exercising more. Take more pills and hope that I am the one in four who will just fall over as my first symptom.
It appears that all tests lead to the $80,000 cath lab even when there are no symptoms. I have become very disillusioned by medical care and specifically Cardiology. Perhaps someone can tell me why we always seems to be the least uninformed about our prognosis. Ps I was an Optometrist for 35 years and "never" intentionally frightened a patient about their prognosis. Fear does not heal.

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If anyone wants to dig into guidelines, there's an app from the American College of Cardiology that has the most recent guidelines for concerns under their purview. Written by doctors for doctors. But interesting to see what the recommendations are for various things. Search "ACC Guideline Clinical App".

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Profile picture for 71young @71young

@bitsygirl thank you very much for your detailed reply. I'm in a similar situation, though my nuclear stress test indicated less than 70% blockage. I appreciate the comparison to sludge in a pipe-makes a lot of sense. Since on statins, 40mgs of crestor, I was able to lower my ldl from 115 to 43. I also learned that plaque can begin to be eliminated so long as the ldl is below 50. So there is some hope that with continued statin, more plant based dieting, and exercise, I may continue to improve.

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@71young That's in impressive LDL reduction and level. I was on 20 mg (if I remember correctly) of Atorvastatin and have recently added ezetimibe. We'll see if I can get my LDL down below 55. I'll be thrilled. Blood test in a week or so.

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Profile picture for ewei6911 @ewei6911

@jlharsh
My cardiologist is focused on the size of my aneurysm now. Before the March 25th CT scan that had 4.1 cm aneurysm size, there was an Echocardiogram that showed a 4.6 cm aneurysm, but my cardiologist said echos get only a partial view and a CT scan is more accurate. A CT scan done on Feb. 12th was 4.8 cm. So, the scan with a decrease to 4.1 cm in a short period of time has me confused and concerned because I thought I needed surgery last February and have now delayed it.
Next time I see my cardiologist, I will ask about what can be done about the Agatston score and let you know what he says.

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@ewei6911
Have you discussed test results with your cardiologist yet? I am interested to hear what you learn.

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Profile picture for Janell, Volunteer Mentor @jlharsh

@ewei6911
Have you discussed test results with your cardiologist yet? I am interested to hear what you learn.

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@jlharsh
No. My cardiologist sent the film of my 2 CT scans to a thoracic surgeon for an opinion about a week ago and I am still waiting to hear back.

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