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Can someone help me to interpret my calcium score and 90th percentile

Posted by belarus1234 @belarus1234, Jun 18 4:40pm

Hello All

I wonder if anyone here can help me to shed some light on what my recent CT Coronary Scan report means? It was a CT heart Scan in which they stress your heart temporarilly to try to identify any blockages and calcium level deposits.

My report which came back 3 weeks after the scan gives me a calcium score of 900 in the 90th Percentile with no 'perfusion defects' but advised to maintain my statin therapy - i'm on 40 mgs Atorvastatin once a day. The report was said to be 'satisfactory' and i'm to be reviewed in one year.

Can anyone tell me what these scores & percentile figure mean?

It will be greatly appreciated.

Derek

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gloaming | @gloaming | Jun 19 12:41am

I'll try. A percentile is merely a ranking based on the whole population of people getting the same test and being given a score. So, it's out of 100%....of all people assessed that way. Your score places you above 89% of all people randomly sampled from the population who are expected to have some calcium deposits. So, it means you have a hefty deposition level of calcium in your arteries....somewhere where they found it if it was imaged.

If you were to google 'percentiles and the standard normal distribution', you'd find sites showing a 'bell curve', and there would be vertical lines every 10% or so, and what you need to understand is that the area under the bell curve from the percentile in question TO THE LEFT, or back to 'zero', represents the percent of the whole population who are represented in the sampling. Their total number adds to '100%', at the far right 'tail' of the curve. Your score is well to the right, under the point on the curve where the 90%ile line rises and meets the curve. The whole area to the left is all the people who have less calcium in their arteries than you do. Does that make sense? That's all 'percentile' means.

Generally, calcium deposition is a Jekyll and Hyde problem. The calcium that is there has worked its way into the plaque, it being cholesterol, and it has become hardened as a result. The bad part is that it is there, making blood rush past it as it encounters the narrowing caused by the plaque. The good news is that the calcium binds the plaque in place and resists letting the blood slough off bits and pieces of the deposit which can then go with the flow into the heart, the lungs, or into (shudder!) the brain, and cause horrible results.

Statins, believe it or not, increase calcification in deposits. You WANT that. They also have the benefit of making cholesterol a lot harder for the liver, essentially preventing it.

A tip for you, in case it's news: statins prevent the circulation of Co-enzyme Q-10, which the heart and muscles need for efficient operation. You need CoQ-10! So, you'll have to add it to your pills each day. You should look for the (more costly) ubiquinol formula on the bottle. The cheaper stuff is ubiquinone, and it's not as readily usable by the body. UbiquinOL vs ubiquinoNE.

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1 reply
agb | @agb | Jun 19 8:45am
In reply to @gloaming "I'll try. A percentile is merely a ranking based on the whole population of people getting..." + (show)
@gloaming

I'll try. A percentile is merely a ranking based on the whole population of people getting the same test and being given a score. So, it's out of 100%....of all people assessed that way. Your score places you above 89% of all people randomly sampled from the population who are expected to have some calcium deposits. So, it means you have a hefty deposition level of calcium in your arteries....somewhere where they found it if it was imaged.

If you were to google 'percentiles and the standard normal distribution', you'd find sites showing a 'bell curve', and there would be vertical lines every 10% or so, and what you need to understand is that the area under the bell curve from the percentile in question TO THE LEFT, or back to 'zero', represents the percent of the whole population who are represented in the sampling. Their total number adds to '100%', at the far right 'tail' of the curve. Your score is well to the right, under the point on the curve where the 90%ile line rises and meets the curve. The whole area to the left is all the people who have less calcium in their arteries than you do. Does that make sense? That's all 'percentile' means.

Generally, calcium deposition is a Jekyll and Hyde problem. The calcium that is there has worked its way into the plaque, it being cholesterol, and it has become hardened as a result. The bad part is that it is there, making blood rush past it as it encounters the narrowing caused by the plaque. The good news is that the calcium binds the plaque in place and resists letting the blood slough off bits and pieces of the deposit which can then go with the flow into the heart, the lungs, or into (shudder!) the brain, and cause horrible results.

Statins, believe it or not, increase calcification in deposits. You WANT that. They also have the benefit of making cholesterol a lot harder for the liver, essentially preventing it.

A tip for you, in case it's news: statins prevent the circulation of Co-enzyme Q-10, which the heart and muscles need for efficient operation. You need CoQ-10! So, you'll have to add it to your pills each day. You should look for the (more costly) ubiquinol formula on the bottle. The cheaper stuff is ubiquinone, and it's not as readily usable by the body. UbiquinOL vs ubiquinoNE.

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Excellent explanation; thank you

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