Thoracic aortic calcification across the clinical dysglycemic continuum in a large Asian population free of cardiovascular symptoms

Thoracic aortic calcification (TAC) is tightly linked to pathological atherosclerosis and associated with certain cardiovascular diseases. While diabetes mellitus (DM) is known as a coronary heart disease equivalent, we examined the presence of TAC across the dysglycemic spectrum of diabetes mellitus (DM). We consecutively studied 3003 asymptomatic ethnic Asians underwent annual cardiovacular health survey, and further categorized them into: 1) 1760 normo-glycemic, 2) 968 pre-diabetic, and 3) 274 overt DM based on dysglycemic indices and medical histories. Several TAC parameters were assessed using non-contrast multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT), and related to dysglycemic indices or diabetes mellitus status. A remarkably graded increases of adjusted total TAC calcium burden, volume and density were seen across Non-diabetes, Pre-diabetes, and diabetes mellitus categories and positively correlated with all dysglycemic profiles (all p

胸主动脉钙化（Thoracic aortic calcification, TAC）与病理性动脉粥样硬化密切相关，且与部分心血管疾病存在关联。尽管糖尿病（diabetes mellitus, DM）被视为冠心病等危症，本研究针对糖尿病人群的糖代谢异常谱，分析了胸主动脉钙化的检出情况。本研究连续纳入3003名接受年度心血管健康筛查的无症状亚裔人群，并根据糖代谢指标与病史将其划分为三组：1）1760名血糖正常者，2）968名糖尿病前期者，3）274名显性糖尿病患者。研究采用非对比多层螺旋计算机断层扫描（non-contrast multi-detector computed tomography, MDCT）评估多项胸主动脉钙化参数，并分析其与糖代谢指标或糖尿病患病状态的相关性。结果显示，在血糖正常组、糖尿病前期组与糖尿病组中，校正后的胸主动脉钙化总负荷、体积及密度均呈显著梯度升高趋势，且与所有糖代谢异常指标均呈正相关（所有p值）