In an era when "preventive health" is all the rage, and we are all being urged to assess our risk factors for heart disease, developing and marketing new tools for cardiac risk assessment has become a big business. In fact, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) notes that more than 100 "emerging" cardiac risk factors are being advanced, by someone or another, as being potentially important.
Accordingly, the USPSTF recently conducted several systematic reviews to evaluate the usefulness of nine of the most commonly promoted "emerging" cardiovascular risk factors. They concluded that there is insufficient evidence to support routinely using any of them. Included in these now-disparaged risk factors are ones you've likely heard of and seen advertised - including C-reactive protein measurement and cardiac calcium scores.
Read here about the nine cardiac risk factors which the USPSTF has found to be less than compelling.
This is extremely interesting. I see an increasing tendency for leading physicians to evaluate evidence this year, ID systematically when something is overused, underused, or used about right. I am more of an optimist than you in that I don’t think it will take years to iron this out. I think that the public wants quality healthcare that is affordable. If they see that something is promoted that lacks benefit, the tide may change. It is in other fields.
Hello Dr Rich,
I wonder how the Framingham risk score can possibly be informative when physical activity is not taken into account.
You have two people with equal risk scores based on the existing parameters, yet one does 6 hours of exercise/week and the other watches TV.
Any observations?