Correlation between Osteoprotegerin Serum Level and Coronary Calcification Using Coronary Artery Calcium Score in Patient with Moderate-Severe Cardiovascular Risk Factor.

Coronary artery calcification is a part of atherosclerosis process associated with coronary heart disease. Recently, coronary artery calcification assessment using computed tomography (CT) is still the best noninvasive imaging with high sensitivity and specificity. Osteoprotegerin (OPG) is one of vascular calcification marker that through its role to bind receptor activator of nuclear factor-κβ ligand and inhibit osteoclastogenesis is suspected of playing a role for coronary calcification in atherosclerosis process. The objective of this study was to prove a positive correlation between OPG serum level and coronary calcification using coronary artery calcium (CAC) score in patient with moderate-severe cardiovascular (CV) risk factor. This is a cross-sectional study with purposive sampling technique. Thirty-three subjects participate in this research and each subject underwent a multislice computed tomography (MSCT) examination to assess coronary calcification and their blood samples were collected for OPG measurement. This study is analyzed with Spearman's correlation test. The mean of OPG serum level in this study was 5.89 ± 2.1 pmol/L for moderate-risk Framingham risk score (FRS) and the mean of OPG serum level for high-risk FRS was 7.27 ± 3.4. There was a positive, moderate, and significant correlation between OPG serum level and coronary calcification using CAC score in patient with moderate-severe CV risk factor ( r  = 0.694; p  < 0.001).