Validation of the Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Pooled Cohort Risk Equations

Abstract

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) recently published the 2013 Guideline on the Assessment of Cardiovascular Risk.¹ As part of this guideline, a working group developed new equations for the prediction of 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk, the Pooled Cohort risk equations. These equations were derived in several population-based cohorts that included large samples of blacks and whites and were aimed at estimating 10-year risk for nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), coronary heart disease (CHD) death, and nonfatal or fatal stroke (hard atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease events). The 2013 ACC/AHA cholesterol treatment guidelines recommend using the Pooled Cohort risk equations to estimate atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk and to help guide the decision to initiate statin therapy for primary prevention in adults without clinical atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or diabetes, and with a low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) level between 70 and 189 mg/dL.²