QRISK3 Performance in the Assessment of Cardiovascular Risk in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been described as an independent risk factor for the development of cardiovascular (CV) disease. Since the QRESEARCH risk estimator version 3 (QRISK3) calculator was recently proposed to assess CV in the general population, our objective was to compare the predictive ability of QRISK3 with that of a well-established European CV risk calculator, the Systematic Coronary Risk Assessment (SCORE), to identify the presence of subclinical carotid atherosclerosis in patients with IBD. In all, 186 patients with IBD and 178 controls were recruited. The presence of subclinical atherosclerosis was evaluated by carotid ultrasound to identify carotid plaque and the thickness of the carotid intima-media (cIMT). QRISK3 and SCORE were calculated. The relationship of QRISK3 and SCORE with each other and with the presence of subclinical carotid atherosclerosis (both carotid plaque and cIMT) was studied in patients and controls. SCORE (0.2 (interquartile range 0.1-0.9) vs. 0.4 (0.1-1.4), p = 0.55) and QRISK3 1.7 ((0.6-4.6) vs. 3.0 (1.0-7.8), p = 0.16) absolute values did not differ between patients and controls. QRISK3 and SCORE correlated equally with cIMT within both populations. However, SCORE correlation with cIMT was found to be significantly lower in patients with IBD when compared to controls (Spearman's Rho 0.715 vs. 0.587, p = 0.034). Discrimination analysis of both calculators with carotid plaque was similar within both populations. Nevertheless, in patients with IBD, QRISK3 showed a trend toward a higher discrimination (QRISK3 area under the curve 0.812 (95%CI 0.748-0.875) vs. SCORE 0.790 (95%CI 0.723-0.856), p = 0.051). In conclusion, QRISK3 discrimination for subclinical atherosclerosis is optimal and equivalent to that of SCORE in IBD patients. However, our findings highlight the role of QRISK3 as an appropriate tool for the assessment of CV risk in patients with IBD.