Lung cancer screening with low-dose CT can detect extensive coronary artery calcium (CAC), an independent predictor of all-cause death and cardiovascular events, new research suggests.

“The high prevalence of asymptomatic coronary artery disease (83%) was surprising, as was the prevalence of extensive CAC (30%),” principal investigator Gary Small, MBChB, PhD, a cardiologist at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, told Medscape Medical News.

“The size of effect was also surprising, as was the persistence of the effect even in the presence of elevated mortality risk from other causes,” he said. “Extensive coronary disease was associated with a twofold increase in risk for death or cardiovascular events over 4 years of follow-up,” even after adjustment for risk for death from cancer and other comorbidities such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The study was published online on December 2 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.