[Practicality of cardiovascular risk functions]

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Preventive Medicine
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Cardiovascular disease prevention strategies need enhancement due to slow incidence reduction.
• Existing risk functions use classical factors (age, sex, smoking, diabetes, blood pressure, lipids) for population screening, primarily for coronary artery disease.
• These functions are crucial for primary prevention clinical guidelines, stratifying patients to optimize therapeutic efforts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To refine cardiovascular disease prevention strategies by improving risk assessment.
• To highlight the importance of accurate coronary artery disease risk stratification for targeted interventions.
• To explore methods for enhancing patient motivation in adhering to preventive measures.

Main Methods:

• Development of risk functions based on classical cardiovascular risk factors in long-term cohorts (>10 years).
• Analysis of patient risk strata to identify optimal groups for intervention (high-risk).
• Evaluation of communication strategies (relative risk, vascular age) to improve patient compliance.

Main Results:

• Classical risk functions are reasonably precise for coronary artery disease screening.
• Approximately 20% of adults aged 35-74 have intermediate risk, necessitating reclassification.
• Intermediate-risk individuals account for 35% of coronary artery disease events.
• Biomarkers are under investigation to improve risk function precision.

Conclusions:

• Current risk functions are valuable for primary prevention but require refinement.
• Accurate risk communication can motivate patients towards lifestyle and drug modifications.
• Integrating automated risk calculation into health systems can support preventive care providers.