Epidemiologic studies on arterial calcification : The Rotterdam Study

textabstractCardiovascular disease leads to a high morbidity and mortality and consequently puts a large burden on the health care system. Therefore, early identification of high-risk subjects is needed. Several non-invasive measures of atherosclerosis exist and may be useful in identifying subjects at high risk. Existing non-invasive measures of atherosclerosis include intima media thickness (IMT) and number of plaques of the carotid arteries by ultrasound and the ankle brachial index, measuring peripheral atherosclerosis. The introduction of electron beam computed tomography (EBCT) and multislice computed tomography (MSCT) has enabled the non-invasive visualization and accurate quantification of calcification in different arteries