Predicting Cardiovascular Risks in a Contemporary Population

The widely accepted pooled cohort equations overestimate 5-year risk in a cohort of Veterans Affairs patients, with implications for statin eligibility.

The pooled cohort equations (PCE) were developed to estimate the risk for an initial atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) event. However, these equations were derived from data in longitudinal studies before widespread use of statin therapy. Investigators sought to test the PCE and two other cohort-derived risk prediction models (one that recalculated the equation based on the characteristics of the population and another that added baseline statin therapy) by examining national Veterans Affairs (VA) electronic health data on 1,672,336 veterans free of ASCVD at baseline (mean age, 58; 94% men; 83% white).

At baseline, 19% of the patients had a statin prescription. After an average follow-up of 4.6 years, 66,605 ASCVD events (corona…

Reviewing Author

Fatima Rodriguez, MD, MPH, FACC, FAHA

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardNovoNordisk; HealthPals; Novartis; Amgen

EquityHealthPals; Carta

Grant/Research SupportNational Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; American Heart Association–Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

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