Heart Calcium Score

What is a coronary artery calcium score?

Heart attacks are usually caused by plaque that builds up silently in the coronary arteries for decades. As plaque matures, part of it calcifies — and calcium is something a CT scanner can see and measure precisely. A coronary artery calcium (CAC) scan, also called a heart calcium score, is a short, needle-free CT of the heart that quantifies that calcified plaque into a single number: the Agatston score.

Understanding your score

Scores are usually grouped into bands. A commonly used grouping runs as below — though reporting conventions genuinely vary between centres, and some labs cut the bands differently, so read your number against the bands your report actually used. Lower is better, and zero is genuinely special:

Why your age changes what the number means

The bands above are absolute, but calcium is cumulative: arteries collect it over decades, so the same score is an entirely different signal at 45 than at 75. A score of 100 in your forties is genuinely unusual and says your arteries are ageing faster than the calendar. The same 100 at seventy-five is unremarkable — plenty of people that age carry more. This is why cardiologists read the score twice: once against the bands, and once against your age, sex, and ethnicity, as a percentile.

That percentile comes from real population data. The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) enrolled 6,814 adults aged 45 to 84 across four ethnic groups — White, Black, Hispanic and Chinese — none of whom had known heart disease when they joined, and published a free calculator that answers the question you actually have: out of 100 people my age, my sex and my background, how many have less calcium than I do? A score at the 90th percentile for your age is a louder alarm than the raw number suggests; a score at the 25th is reassurance the bands alone cannot give you.

Both numbers matter, and it is worth being precise about which does what. The percentile contextualises; it does not replace the absolute score. Treatment guidance still keys off the raw number — crossing 100 is what typically brings a statin conversation into the room regardless of how you compare to your peers — with a high percentile acting as an additional prompt rather than a substitute. Read as a pair, they answer two different questions: how much plaque is there? and how unusual is that for someone like me?

None of this is read in isolation. Your score belongs next to blood pressure, cholesterol, family history, and lifestyle — the physician reviewing it with you is weighing all of them at once.

Who benefits most from the scan?

The calcium score is most valuable when your risk is uncertain — when the answer would actually change what you do next. That typically means adults roughly 40–75 with at least one of:

• A family history of early heart disease
• Borderline or "gray zone" cholesterol, where the statin decision is genuinely unclear
• Past smoking, high blood pressure, or metabolic risk factors
• A desire for a hard, measured number instead of a risk-calculator estimate

If you already have diagnosed coronary disease or a previous stent, the score adds little — your cardiologist has better tools for you.

What the score can't tell you

The scan detects calcified plaque only. Younger adults in particular can carry soft, non-calcified plaque that a calcium score will miss entirely, which is why a score of zero is reassuring but not a guarantee.

The calcium score also says nothing about the rest of your body. It pairs naturally with a full-body MRI, which covers the organs and structures a cardiac CT never sees.

What to expect on scan day

This is one of the easiest exams in medicine from the patient's side. Below is the standard sequence, as of July 2026 — the exact flow follows the hospital's current protocol:

1. 1
   Lie down, electrodes on

   Small ECG pads may be placed on your chest so the scanner can time its images between heartbeats.
2. 2
   Hold your breath — a few seconds

   The scanner captures the heart images in a handful of breath-holds. No needles, no contrast injection.
3. 3
   Done in 10–15 minutes

   Radiation dose is low — roughly 1 mSv, in the range of a mammogram. No recovery time; skip caffeine right before the scan if instructed.

What a calcium score costs

A calcium score is one of the least expensive scans in medicine. In the United States, published self-pay prices as of July 2026 have commonly fallen in the low hundreds of dollars, with many imaging centers advertising a flat screening rate. Coverage is a separate question: as of its 2018 statement the US Preventive Services Task Force rates the evidence as insufficient (an “I” statement) for adding calcium scoring to routine risk assessment in people without symptoms — the Task Force has an update to this topic in progress — and what your own insurer does with that is worth asking before you assume either way. Prices vary widely by centre and change often, so treat any figure you read — including that range — as a starting point to verify locally.

At New Dawn Health the scan is bookable on its own or inside a screening package; the live prices further down this page come straight from our booking system, so what you see there is what you would pay today.

Results and follow-up

You receive your Agatston score with a written report; turnaround and who explains the score vary by hospital, and your coordinator confirms both when you book. The explanation covers, when relevant, what the score suggests about medication, follow-up intervals, or whether a coronary CT angiogram is worth considering. The score also becomes a baseline: repeating the scan years later shows whether plaque is progressing or holding steady.