Coronary Inflammation: The hidden driver of disease progression

Measure coronary inflammation with CaRi-Heart FAI-Score™

Coronary Inflammation is a crucial driver of coronary artery disease

Coronary inflammation plays a critical role in atherosclerotic plaque formation and rupture by triggering a cascade of biological events (Antoniades et al. 2020, Ross 1999). Unaddressed coronary inflammation is a key residual risk for heart attacks. 

Targeting inflammation reduces cardiovascular risk, as shown in several randomized trials such as CANTOS (2017), COLCOT (2019), LoDoCo2 (2020). However, current clinical pathways lack a scalable and effective way to measure coronary inflammation. 

Existing biomarkers of inflammation such as high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) measure systemic inflammation and are not specific for coronary inflammation. 

Understanding PVAT and FAI-Score

PVAT

Peri-vascular adipose tissue (PVAT) is the fat that surrounds blood vessels such as coronary arteries.​

PVAT cells detect chemical signals that are released when an artery is inflamed and change their structure.​

​This change in structure can be detected in routine (CCTA).​

PVAT is therefore a naturally occurring “biosensor” for coronary inflammation.​

FAI-Score

The FAI-Score is Caristo’s proprietary method for measuring the change in structure in the PVAT using routine CCTA.​

​The Fat Attenuation Index (FAI) is a measure of the radiodensity of the PVAT and the FAI-Score corrects this for anatomical, biological and technical factors to provide a standardised biomarker of coronary inflammation.​

​ CaRi-Heart Risk integrates the FAI-Score with plaque burden and clinical risk factors to provide a personalised risk of a fatal cardiac event.​

CaRi-Heart® FAI-Score is the most prognostic inflammatory biomarker​

  • A high FAI-Score showed 20x increased risk of cardiac mortality  
  • Even among patients with no or minimal plaque, a high FAI-Score showed:  
    • 9.5x risk for cardiac mortality   
    • 5.5x risk for major adverse cardiac events (MACE)  
  • An inflammatory driven pathway with CaRi-Heart analysis changed treatment recommendation in 45% of patients 
(Lancet 2024)