Findings are ‘important’ but not practice changing
Salim S. Virani, MD, FACC, who was not involved in the study, said this new research is important.
The analyses were done well and push the needle further in a direction that suggests “when we are doing imaging for one reason, we should use the totality of information that we have available,” he noted.
“I mean, if you are looking at a lung nodule, if you see an aortic valve that’s very calcified, then it should prompt you to at least ask the patient about some symptoms related to that,” Dr. Virani explained.
However, he said more research is needed on a larger population before LDCT can be considered a diagnostic tool for aortic stenosis.
“I think we have to understand that this study was done in a very specific group of patients,” said Dr. Virani, professor in the sections of cardiology and cardiovascular research at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. “If you were to do it in a population that was much younger, with much lower risk of even lung cancer, then the yield of a CT to pick up aortic stenosis would be lower.”
Before any practice changes are made regarding LDCT and the diagnosis of aortic stenosis, there needs to be more research on how many people in the general population are getting non–cardiology-related chest imaging and then come up with a population-based metric as to what calcium score cutoff could be used, he said.
Dr. Fijalkowski said he believes the results of his study will encourage physicians to focus not only on pulmonary nodules but also to look for additional things such as aortic valve calcification.
The experts did not disclose any relevant financial relationships.