van Rosendael AR, van den Hoogen IJ, Gianni U, et al. - The outcomes indicated that statin use was associated with greater rates of transformation of coronary atherosclerosis toward high-density calcium. Researchers found a pattern of slower overall plaque progression with increasing density. With increased densification of calcium, all findings support the concept of reduced atherosclerotic risk.

• The study enrolled 2,458 coronary lesions in 857 patients (mean [SD] age, 62.1 [8.7] years; 540 [63.0%] men; 548 [63.9%] received statin therapy).

• It has been reported that untreated coronary lesions elevated in volume over time for all 6 compositional types.

• The results showed that statin therapy was correlated with volume decreases in low-attenuation plaque (β, −0.02; 95% CI, −0.03 to −0.01; P = .001) and fibro-fatty plaque (β, −0.03; 95% CI, −0.04 to −0.02; P < .001) and greater progression of high-density calcium plaque (β, 0.02; 95% CI, 0.01-0.03; P < .001) and 1K plaque (β, 0.02; 95% CI, 0.01-0.03; P < .001).

• It was shown that statin therapy was not correlated with a change in overall calcified plaque volume (β, −0.03; 95% CI, −0.08 to 0.02; P = .24) but was associated with a transformation toward more dense calcium when analyses were restricted to lesions without low-attenuation plaque or fibro-fatty plaque at baseline.

• Furthermore, interaction analysis between baseline plaque volume and calcium density demonstrated that more dense coronary calcium was correlated with less plaque progression.