A new study suggests that doctors who use CT scans to detect calcium buildup in arteries may be able to better predict heart disease risk in some of their patients. The study involved 5,878 patients between 45 and 84 enrolled in the Multi Ethnic Study of Arthrosclerosis and was evaluated using CT scans to look for calcium in the walls of their coronary arteries. The researchers have concluded that a calcium sore is likely to improve the ability of doctors to determine whether their patients are a risk for developing heart problems over time.

Lead Author Philip Greenland of Northwestern University said, "There's a very substantial improvement in risk prediction. It works best in patients whom physicians are perplexed by, those with intermediate risk. Roughly 150 million people in the USA fall into the moderate-risk category. Twenty million of them could be shifted into a higher-risk group based on the results". Reza Fazal of Emory University notes that the study does not answer the key question. And that is,"Whether the patients who were reclassified into the higher risk groups gained any benefit from additional tests or treatment.

There are about 70 million scans done annually in the USA and doctors are becoming increasingly concerned about the amount of radiation people absorb. Andrew Einstein of Columbia University , who has studied radiation risk posed by coronary calcium CT scans said , ""The question is, how many cancers are you willing to take, 10 years down the road, to prevent (an unknown number) of heart attacks and deaths?".