Prevalence of intracranial artery calcification in hemodialysis patients—a case–control study

Background Intracranial artery calcification has been reported to be an independent risk factor for ischemic stroke. Also, existence of a positive correlation has been reported between the presence of arterial calcification and that of ischemic changes in the area supplied by such arteries. While intracranial artery calcification has frequently been observed on computed tomographic (CT) images of the brain in hemodialysis patients, its prevalence has not been reported previously. We investigated our hemodialysis outpatients to determine the prevalence of intracranial artery calcification in these patients in comparison with that in healthy controls. Methods Brain CT examinations were performed in 107 patients under maintenance hemodialysis therapy. For comparison, 43 representatives of the general population who underwent a brain CT examination as part of a health checkup were also studied as control subjects. Results Intracranial calcifications were more frequently found among hemodialysis patients (87.9%) than among control subjects (53.5%, P = 0.0003), and the prevalences of calcification in each of the intracranial arteries in the two groups were as follows: vertebral artery (65.5% vs. 25.6%, P = 0.0002), internal carotid artery (62.1% vs. 18.6%, P < 0.0001), basilar artery (34.5% vs. 34.9%, ns), anterior cerebral artery (0 vs. 2.3%, ns), middle cerebral artery (24.1% vs. 20.9%, ns), and posterior cerebral artery (5.2% vs. 4.7%, ns). Conclusions A much higher rate of intracranial artery calcification was observed in hemodialysis patients than in the general population, and the most frequently involved sites of calcification in these patients were the relatively large intracranial arteries.