CT-Based Thymic Morphology as an Imaging Surrogate of Immune Ageing and Its Association with Coronary Artery Calcification—A Hypothesis-Generating Observational Study
Residual thymic tissue was significantly inversely associated with coronary artery calcification, and this association persisted after adjustment for age and sex. These findings support the hypothetical concept that morphologically detectable thymic remnants may reflect interindividual differences in immune ageing and inflammaging that are associated with age-related inflammatory disease phenotypes. The results of this hypothesis-generating study give incentive to further investigate the nature and strength of these associations in prospective studies.
Authors
- Patrick Langguth (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7138-7415)
- Agreen Horr
- Sandra Freitag‐Wolf (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1069-7740)
- Hatim Seoudy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9198-5965)
- Karim Mostafa (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9372-9006)
- O. A. Müller
- Sarah Krutmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4803-7430)
- Isabella Luisa Walther (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5933-5720)
- Olav Jansen
Institutions
- Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (DE)
- University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein (DE)
- German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DE)
- University of Lübeck (DE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Biomedicines
- Published
- 2026-04-13
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines14040883
- Primary Topic
- Myasthenia Gravis and Thymoma
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00