Diagnostic Tests for Vascular Calcification

Abstract

Vascular calcification (VC) is the heterogeneous endpoint of multiple vascular insults, which varies by arterial bed, the layer of the arterial wall affected, and is propagated by diverse cellular and biochemical mechanisms. A variety of in vivo and ex vivo techniques have been applied to the analysis of VC in preclinical studies, but clinical examination has principally relied on a number of noninvasive and invasive imaging modalities for detection and quantitation. Most imaging methods suffer from suboptimal spatial resolution, leading to the inability to distinguish medial from intimal VC and insufficient sensitivity to detect microcalcifications that are indicative of active mineral depo..