ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. Atherosclerosis and Vascular Medicine
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2025.1583124
This article is part of the Research TopicBiomechanics and Mechanotransduction in Cardiovascular CalcificationView all articles
The serum levels of FGF23, sclerostin, osteoprotegerin do not explain the inverse relationship between coronary calcifications and bone mineral density evaluated using computed tomography
Provisionally accepted
- Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Osteoporotic patients are at a higher risk of stroke or myocardial infarction compared to non-osteoporotic patients, and conversely, individuals who have experienced a myocardial infarction or stroke are at increased risk for low bone mineral density (BMD) or osteoporotic fractures. Some studies suggest that the relationship between osteoporosis and vascular calcification may stem from the dysregulation of common factors that are implicated in both bone remodeling and the formation of calcified vascular plaques.Objectives: Our primary endpoint was to evaluate the correlation between bone mineral density and calcification score. Our secondary endpoint was to analyse the association between potential shared serum biomarkers and the calcification score or bone status.We conducted a retrospective study between May and October 2015 in 94 patients who had undergone a thoracic CT scan, to assess their coronary risk by calculating an Agatston score. The scans were re-analysed to obtain volumetric bone mineral densities (vBMD). We measured osteoprotegerin, FGF23 and sclerostin in frozen serums from these patients.Patients with a calcium score of 0 had a significantly higher vBMD than patients with a calcium score > 0 (187.7 vs 162.1, p 0.03). This relationship persisted after adjusting for age, sex, BMI and sedentarity (p 0.036). There was no significant relationship between FGF23, osteoprotegerin, or sclerostin levels and the calcium score or vBMD.Lower vertebral thoracic bone mineral density is significantly associated with an increased risk of vascular calcification. However, this relationship is not explained by the serum levels of FGF23, sclerostin, or osteoprotegerin.
Keywords: Osteoporosis, Coronary calcification, FGF-23, Osteoprotegerin, Sclerostin
Received: 26 Feb 2025; Accepted: 05 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 FERRIERES, Laroche, Degboé, Jaafar and Ferrières. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: LAURENCE FERRIERES, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.