The association between mortality and abdominal aortic calcification and relation between its progression and serum calcium concentration in chronic hemodialysis patients

Background The composite summary score (range, 0–24) of abdominal aortic calcification (AAC) devised by Kauppila et al is a simple method of assessing AAC severity. However, few studies have been conducted to determine an optimal AAC cutoff score for the prediction of mortality or to investigate the relation between mineral metabolism and AAC progression using the scoring system.