Transcript
Announcer:
Welcome to Heart Matters on ReachMD. On this episode, Dr. Roger Blumenthal will discuss how the PREVENT-ASCVD equations can improve risk assessment. He’s the Kenneth Jay Pollin Professor of Cardiology and Director of the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease at Johns Hopkins Medicine, as well as the Chair of the Writing Committee for the 2026 American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association Guideline on the Management of Dyslipidemia. Let’s hear from Dr. Blumenthal now.
Dr. Blumenthal:
The PREVENT equation is so much more accurate and meaningful than prior risk assessment tools. We started off with the Framingham Risk Score, and Framingham started way back in 1948. And truthfully, cardiovascular disease in the 1960s, 70s, and even 80s was really dominated by if a person smoked, and that was one of the main determinants of people who got early cardiovascular disease.
But as smoking rates started to decline in the 70s especially and into the 80s, more and more of the cardiovascular disease became linked to being overweight and having pre-diabetes or diabetes. More people started taking medication, whether it be a blood pressure medicine or maybe some sort of lipid-lowering medication, and the PREVENT score allows us to factor all those things in.
PREVENT is based on six and a half million individuals, while the prior equation, called the pooled cohort equation, was based on about 26,000 individuals who were in NIH-funded studies. So not only are there many more people and many more events to get more accurate risk estimates, but I think it should be emphasized that it's more contemporary, focusing more on the last 20 years especially.
Cardiovascular disease, since the turn of the century, is more related now to being overweight and having higher blood sugar and less about cigarette smoking. And people's habits have changed, some things for the better. People tend to follow more of a lower saturated fat diet than they may have back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.
Announcer:
That was Dr. Roger Blumenthal explaining how the PREVENT-ASCVD equation can play a role in risk assessment. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Heart Matters on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!
