What is the actual prevalence of major risk factors in patients with coronary heart disease? A study by Khot et al. published in the JAMA in 2003 revealed that about 60 percent of these patients have only one or none of the conventional risk factors such as smoking, hypertension, diabetes or elevated cholesterol levels (1).

In the present study, a population of almost twenty-five thousand initially healthy American women was used to derive and validate new risk prediction models for global cardiovascular risk. Thirty-five potential markers of risk were measured in these women who were followed-up for a median of 10.2 years for incident cardiovascular events, and minimization of the Bayes Information Criterion (BIC) was used in the derivation cohort to develop the best-fitting parsimonious prediction models. According to the BIC values, the Best Fitting Model A and Clinically Simplified Model B (Reynolds Risk Score) were found to perform better than other risk prediction models.

The Reynolds Risk Score includes age, HbA1c (in the case of diabetes), systolic blood pressure, smoking, non-HDL cholesterol and HDL cholesterol, as well as the hsCRP value and parental history of myocardial infarction before age 60. The study which was recently published in the JAMA, demonstrated highly improved accuracy of the two clinical algorithms for global cardiovascular risk prediction that reclassified 40% to 50% of women at intermediate risk into higher- or lower-risk categories (2).

To access the Reynolds Risk Score online please go to: www.ReynoldsRiskScore.org


Copyright © 2007 E-MedHosting.com Inc.

After viewing this presentation the participant will be able to discuss:

- The prevalence of conventional risk factors in patients with coronary heart disease
- Development of the new Reynolds Risk Score for global cardiovascular risk prediction in women and its utility in reclassifying many at intermediate risk

1. Umesh N. Khot, MD; Monica B. Khot, MD; Christopher T. Bajzer, MD; Shelly K. Sapp, MS; E. Magnus Ohman, MD; Sorin J. Brener, MD; Stephen G. Ellis, MD; A. Michael Lincoff, MD; Eric J. Topol, MD Prevalence of Conventional Risk Factors in Patients With Coronary Heart Disease JAMA. 2003;290:898-904.

2. Paul M Ridker, MD, MPH; Julie E. Buring, ScD; Nader Rifai, PhD; Nancy R. Cook, ScD Development and Validation of Improved Algorithms for the Assessment of Global Cardiovascular Risk in Women: The Reynolds Risk Score JAMA. 2007;297:611-619.