Cardiovascular risk assessment might be improved with the addition of emerging, new tests derived from atherosclerosis imaging, laboratory tests or functional tests. This article reviews relative risk, odds ratios, receiver-operating curves, posttest risk calculations based on likelihood ratios, the net reclassification improvement and integrated discrimination. This serves to determine whether...

We read with great interest the study by MOORES et al. [1]. The authors propose that patients admitted for acute pulmonary embolism and classified as Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (PESI) class III could be more appropriately risk-stratified by recalculating the PESI score 48 h after admission (PESI48). 83 out of 304 PESI class III patients were reclassified as low risk (defined as PESI48 cl...

BACKGROUND The role of coronary artery calcium (CAC) as a screening tool for cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in African Americans (AAs) is unclear. We compared the diagnostic accuracy for CVD prevalence using the CAC score and the Framingham Risk Score (FRS) in an adult population of AAs. METHODS CAC was measured in 2944 participants AAs. Approximately 8% of this cohort had known CVD define...

BACKGROUND According to population-based cohort studies CT coronary calcium score (CTCS), carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT), high-sensitivity C- reactive protein (CRP), and ankle-brachial index (ABI) are promising novel risk markers for improving cardiovascular risk assessment. Their impact in the U.S. general population is however uncertain. Our aim was to estimate the predictive value of ...

BACKGROUND Recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identified more than 70 novel loci for type 2 diabetes (T2D), some of which have been widely replicated in Asian populations. In this study, we investigated their individual and combined effects on T2D in a Chinese population. METHODOLOGY We selected 14 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in T2D genes relating to beta-cell function v...

BACKGROUND Risk prediction models have been proposed for various diseases and are being improved as new predictors are identified. A major challenge is to determine whether the newly discovered predictors improve risk prediction. Decision curve analysis has been proposed as an alternative to the area under the curve and net reclassification index to evaluate the performance of prediction models...

BACKGROUND The recently introduced CKD-EPIcreat-cys equation surpassed creatinine-based equations for GFR estimation in a large cross-sectional analysis. However, its performance to predict individual risk of CKD progression and death in patients with various underlying CKD etiologies is unknown. METHODS We recruited 444 patients with CKD GFR categories 2-4 (eGFR 15-89 mL/min/1.73 m2); baseli...

Metabolic syndrome (MS) is widely believed to be an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). We assessed whether a model based on MS improved prediction of CVD and total mortality over the Framingham's general CVD system (FRS) and whether MS was better than its individual components. Prospective cohort study of 855 participants randomly selected from the general population. Cox p...

PURPOSE This study evaluates the prognostic performance of a 15 gene expression profiling (GEP) assay that assigns primary posterior uveal melanomas to prognostic subgroups: class 1 (low metastatic risk) and class 2 (high metastatic risk). DESIGN Prospective, multicenter study. PARTICIPANTS A total of 459 patients with posterior uveal melanoma were enrolled from 12 independent centers. TE...

BACKGROUND It remained unclear whether the combination of the Canada Acute Coronary Syndrome Risk Score (CACS-RS) and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-pro-BNP) could have a better performance in predicting clinical outcomes in acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients with primary percutaneous coronary intervention. METHODS A total of 589 consecutive STEMI patients...