Recent American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines for the assessment of cardiovascular risk recommend a new 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk prediction tool called the Pooled Cohort risk equation. This new predictive model developed from cohorts of patients that were largely studied prior to the year 2000.  In light of the declining CVD incidence since 2000, the external validity of the Pooled Cohort risk equation has been questioned.  The present study sought to validate the Pooled Cohort equation in a contemporary cohort of 10,997 individuals aged 45-79 years without a prior history of atherosclerotic CVD for whom the guidelines would recommend consideration of a statin.  In 47,481 person-years of follow-up, 192 coronary heart disease events and 146 strokes were observed. Differences in observed and predicted risk were small in patients for whom a statin should be considered, consistent with good model calibration.  Further, the C-index was 0.72 (95% CI 0.70 – 0.75) consistent with moderate discrimination.

Conclusion: The recently published Pooled Cohort risk equations recommended by ACC/AHA guidelines demonstrated good calibration and discrimination among individuals who should be considered for statin therapy.  These findings support the validity of the model among patients being considered for statin therapy.

 Summarized by Supriya Shore and Steven M. Bradley

• Muntner P, Colantonio LD, Cushman M, et al. Validation of the atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease Pooled Cohort risk equations. JAMA. 2014;311(14):1406-1415.