Reclassification of European patients’ cardiovascular risk using the updated Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation algorithm

Abstract

Data from the European Study on Cardiovascular Risk Prevention and Management in Usual Daily Practice (EURIKA; ClinicalTrials.gov; NCT00882336) was used to assess the proportions of patients aged 50–65 years free of diabetes and not receiving lipid-lowering therapy (LLT) considered to be at low (<1%), intermediate (1% to <5%) and high (≥5%) 10-year risk of cardiovascular mortality according to the Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE) algorithm and the updated algorithm that considers patients’ total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels as independent variables (SCORE-HDL). Of 2321 patients analysed, 19.3%, 60.7% and 20.0% were considered to be at low, intermediate and high cardiovascular risk respectively according to SCORE, and 25.7%, 57.2% and 17.1% respectively according to SCORE-HDL. Thus, there was an overall trend towards reclassification from higher to lower risk categories when SCORE-HDL was compared with SCORE.