AUG 16, 2026 · JOURNAL ARTICLE
Coronary calcium scoring in the evaluation of stable chest pain in general practice: a cluster-randomised trial
Heart
A pragmatic cluster-randomized trial in primary care showing CACS reduces unnecessary cardiology referrals and improves preventive enrolment, but fails on the primary outcome (practice-level CVRM registration) and detects similar OCAD rates; limited by non-blinded design, imbalanced per-protocol sample, and lack of hard clinical endpoints.
Reported
Primary outcome: practice-level C…CACS +0.3%, SOC +0.2%
p-value for primary outcome0.77
Cardiologist referral rateCACS 42.5% vs SOC 80.3%