Heart attack risk calculators developed to help doctors prescribe statins

By Mark Waghorn via SWNS

Heart attack risk calculators have been developed to help doctors to prescribe patients statins.

The two tools accurately identify those who should be given the cholesterol-busting pills.

A study of almost 4,000 over-50s found they were two-and-a-half times more effective at administering appropriate treatment as traditional care.

Principal investigator Dr. Jeffrey Anderson, of Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, Utah, said: "When it comes to identifying who is likely to have a cardiac event, physicians are often playing catch up.

"They are often looking at only one or another risk marker in an annual physical rather than making a formal multifactor risk assessment or are only uncovering the patient's true risk after a heart or stroke.

"In this study, we have shown taking a more active approach to help us find more patients who can benefit from a statin and hopefully prevent a heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular death before it can happen."

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Nearly one in three Americans die of heart disease or stroke, according to the CDC.

Medicines watchdog NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) has recommended more people be considered for statins.

They are one of the world's most popular medications, dampening inflammation in blood vessels.

The US participants were recommended for statins based on algorithms known as the Pooled Cohort Equation and coronary artery calcium scoring.

The former which chances of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, within the next decade factoring in age, gender, blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and smoking status. The latter measures coronary calcium from CT scans.

Around 600 volunteers underwent the tests - with 42 percent being advised to go on statins a quarter ended up receiving them, compared to 10 percent of 3,200 controls.

The statin group had higher levels of blood fats, less good cholesterol - but reduced rates of heart attacks, strokes and other major adverse cardiac events over three years of follow-up.

Dr. Anderson added: "This kind of active approach leads to more patients being checked more frequently for risk factors for coronary heart disease, and they were treated with statins more often, with the objective to lower their risk of a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack or stroke.

"If we are not actively assessing the risk of atherosclerotic cardiac disease with the aim of statin selection, we as physicians are much less likely to get statins to patients who could benefit from them. We also need to look for ways to further improve the results of our active approaches."

He presented the findings at an American College of Cardiology meeting in New Orleans. His team is now carrying out a larger trial of more than 5,000 patients.