Agreement between cardiovascular risk scores in a high-altitude Andean population with rheumatoid arthritis

This study aimed to assess the agreement between cardiovascular risk scores in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

We conducted a cross-sectional study of adult patients with RA at the Hospital Nacional Adolfo Guevara Velasco in Cusco-Peru in 2024. The 2019 World Health Organization cardiovascular risk score (2019-WHO-CRS), Framingham risk score (FRS), and Expanded cardiovascular Risk prediction Score for Rheumatoid Arthritis (ERS-RA) were used to estimate the 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease. Agreement was assessed through Bland-Altman plots and Kappa statistics.

A total of 145 patients were included. The median age was 56 years (47-65) and 92% were female. The median scores using the 2019-WHO-CRS was 3% (2-5), FRS was 5.4% (2.8-7.9), and ERS-RA was 5% (2.3-9.4). Using a cut-off point >10%, the proportion of patients with high cardiovascular risk was 7.6%, 16.7%, and 23.2% for 2019-WHO-CRS, FRS, and ERS-RA, respectively. In the Bland-Altman plots, the limits of agreement were wide between risk scores (-16.8% to 1.4% for 2019-WHO-CRS vs. ERS-RA, -12.8% to 2.3% for 2019-WHO-CRS vs. FRS, and -11.8% to 7.7% for FRS vs. ERS-RA). The highest agreement (Kappa statistic: 0.56) in predicting high risk was between 2019-WHO-CRS and FRS scores. Our results suggest that there was disagreement between the 2019-WHO-CRS, FRS, and ERS-RA cardiovascular risk scores in an Andean population with RA.

The identification of patients at high cardiovascular risk varied considerably among the scores, with the ERS-AR yielding the highest values. Further prospective studies evaluating the prognostic performance of these scores are needed.