A cardiovascular disease risk equation that can be adjusted to apply to any country with adequate health records, regardless of income level, has been developed, according to Dr. Kaveh Hajifathalian of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and associates.
The risk calculator, termed Globorisk, seemed to perform well, with C statistics (a measure of discrimination) generally 70% or more. Risk of fatal cardiovascular disease was lowest in Denmark, Spain, and South Korea, where less than 10% of people had a greater than 10% risk and 62%-82% had less than 3% risk. China had by far the highest CVD risk, with 33% of men and 28% of women having greater than a 10% risk and only 37% of men and 42% of women having less than a 3% risk.
The development of the Globorisk calculator “helps to overcome the technical barriers for global application of risk stratification and will provoke debate about the needs of health systems by allowing calculation of the coverage of risk-based treatment in different countries,” the investigators concluded.
Read the full study in Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology (doi:10.1016/S2213-8587(15)00081-9).
