Deciphering age- and sex-specific patterns of coronary artery atherosclerosis from a large Chinese cohort

Xinnian Yang, Jiayin Zhang, Yanli Song, Dengqiang Jia, Qingqi Hong, Yiqiang Zhan, Xiang Sean Zhou, Yining Dong, Yining Wang (), Dijia Wu () and Dinggang Shen ()
Additional contact information
Xinnian Yang: City University of Hong Kong, School of Data Science
Jiayin Zhang: Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Department of Radiology, Shanghai General Hospital
Yanli Song: Ltd., Shanghai United Imaging Intelligence Co.
Dengqiang Jia: Hong Kong Centre for Cerebro-cardiovascular Health Engineering
Qingqi Hong: Xiamen University, National Institute for Data Science in Health and Medicine
Yiqiang Zhan: Ltd., Shanghai United Imaging Intelligence Co.
Xiang Sean Zhou: Ltd., Shanghai United Imaging Intelligence Co.
Yining Dong: City University of Hong Kong, School of Data Science
Yining Wang: Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Department of Radiology, State Key Laboratory of Complex Severe and Rare Diseases, Peking Union Medical College Hospital
Dijia Wu: Ltd., Shanghai United Imaging Intelligence Co.
Dinggang Shen: ShanghaiTech University, School of Biomedical Engineering & State Key Laboratory of Advanced Medical Materials and Devices

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-16

Abstract: Abstract Coronary artery disease poses a significant public health threat, and coronary computed tomography angiography is the preferred imaging modality for diagnosis and risk assessment of coronary artery disease through plaque evaluation. However, understandings of how atherosclerotic characteristics vary by age and sex remains limited due to challenges in manual quantitative plaque assessment. Here, we conducted a retrospective, consecutive, multi-center Chinese cohort study of 16,300 patients undergoing clinically indicated coronary computed tomography angiography that revealed multi-level quantitative patterns of atherosclerosis stratified by age and sex. We found that females experienced a delayed atherosclerosis onset by approximately 20 years compared to males, with plaque burden increasing nonlinearly with age and accelerating more evidently after menopause. The built coronary atlas identified plaque clusters, primarily within proximal segments of major coronary arteries, slightly upstream side branch bifurcations. Our findings provide deeper insights into coronary atherosclerosis in the Chinese population, supporting more tailored prevention strategies.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64940-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-64940-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-64940-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().