Study of 5,000+ patients finds new measurement tool better at determining cardiac risk
Researchers from the Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah, have devised a better way to determine an individual's risk for problems, such as heart attack and heart failure, according to a new study.
The research team has developed the Intermountain Risk Score, a measurement tool that looks at age and sex, but also adds the results of routine blood tests, which are not included in the assessment system commonly used by physicians today.
Researchers at Intermountain compared the Intermountain Risk Score with the Framingham Risk Score, currently the gold standard for measuring future coronary heart disease risk. The Framingham index looks at total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes, age, and gender.
"Framingham does a good job of classifying groups of patients. But it's not as good at indentifying an individual's risk for disease," says Benjamin Horne, PhD, director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at the Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center, and the principal author of the study.
That's where the Intermountain Risk Score can help.
"Our research has shown that the Intermountain Risk Score really improves a doctor's ability to measure patient risk. And it does it by including two simple and inexpensive tests: the complete blood count and metabolic profiles," he says.
Results of the study from the Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center will be presented at 1:30 pm, EST, on Sunday, March 14, at the American College of Cardiology's 59th annual scientific session in Atlanta.
Researchers followed over 5,000 patients who were treated for angiography, or vascular imaging. By combining the patients' Framingham Risk Score with their Intermountain Risk Score, researchers found that they were 30 percent more likely to correctly determine a woman's risk, and 57 percent more likely to determine a man's risk for a cardiovascular problem or death within 30 days of the angiography. The results remained substantially better than the Framingham score alone after one year (23 percent for women and 46 percent for men) and at five years (29 percent for women and 25 percent for men).
"Adding the Intermountain Risk Score to the Framingham Risk Score substantially improves our ability to determine an individual's risk of future coronary heart disease and associated problems," says Dr. Horne.