Do Polygenic Risk Scores Improve Cardiovascular Risk Prediction?

Complex traits such as in cardiovascular disease are influenced by variants in multiple genes. Polygenic risk scores quantify the risks stemming from these many genetic variants. Two research groups recently aimed to determine whether adding genome-wide polygenic risk scores to current risk-factor–based scores (i.e., pooled cohort equations) would improve prediction of cardiovascular disease.

Mosley and colleagues retrospectively examined predictions of 10-year coronary heart disease (CHD) events; a previously validated polygenic risk score and pooled cohort equations were applied to 4847 white participants from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study (mean age, 63; 56% women) and the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA;…