Aortic Arch Width and Cardiovascular Disease in Men and Women in the Community

Background We sought to determine whether increased aortic arch width (AAW) adds to standard Framingham risk factors and coronary artery calcium (CAC) for prediction of incident adverse cardiovascular disease (CVD) events in community‐dwelling adults. Methods and Results A total of 3026 Framingham Heart Study Offspring and Third Generation cohort participants underwent noncontrast multidetector computed tomography from 2002 to 2005 to quantify CAC. We measured AAW as the distance between the centroids of the ascending and descending thoracic aorta, at the level of main pulmonary artery bifurcation or the right pulmonary artery. We determined sex, age group, and body size specific cut points for high (≥90th percentile) AAW from a healthy referent group (N=1471) and dichotomized AAW as high or not high across all study participants. Clinical covariates were obtained at Offspring cycle 7 (1998–2001) or Third Generation cycle 1 (2002–2005) examinations. The primary CVD outcome was a composite of myocardial in...