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Updated: Aug 11, 2026
Identifying Coronary Artery Calcification on Non-gated Computed Tomography Scans
Published on: August 28, 2018
Cardiovascular calcifications after radiation therapy for Hodgkin lymphoma: computed tomography detection and
Sara Apter1, Joseph Shemesh, Pia Raanani
1Department of Diagnostic Imaging, Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel. apter@post.tau.ac.il
Objective:
To study cardiovascular calcifications, detected by computed tomography, in patients following mediastinal radiation for Hodgkin lymphoma, and correlate them with clinical findings.
Materials And Methods:
Fifteen patients,
Results:
Accelerated calcifications were detected in the coronary arteries (n=11), in the aorta (n=11), and in the aortic valve and the mitral apparatus (n=8). Calcifications were more extensive when radiation was given at a young age. Clinical evidence of cardiovascular disease included coronary events in three patients, valvular dysfunction in two, pericarditis in two and complete atrioventricular block in one. Seven patients had no cardiac symptoms.
Conclusion:
Early cardiovascular calcifications can be radiation associated. Such calcifications may represent radiation-induced atherosclerosis and can be detected by computed tomography even in asymptomatic patients. The implication of our findings is that spiral computed tomography may serve as a non-invasive modality to detect accelerated cardiovascular calcifications in high-risk asymptomatic patients who survived Hodgkin lymphoma.
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