Socioeconomic differences?
“The fact that we’re uncovering and demonstrating that this is an issue – especially for African American women at a young age – and we could make a significant interdiction in terms of risk reduction if we have tools and invest the necessary time and effort, that is the important part of this paper,” Keith Churchwell, MD, Yale New Haven Hospital, and Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn., said in an interview.
“If you’re going to evaluate African Americans in Harlem who are socially disadvantaged, I would want to know if there is a difference between them and other African Americans who have a different socioeconomic status, in terms of atherosclerotic disease,” added Dr. Churchwell, who was not involved with the study.
The Framingham 10-year risk score is “inadequate in assessing CV disease risk in all populations and is not generalizable to non-Whites,” contend Ramdas G. Pai, MD, and Vrinda Vyas, MBBS, of the University of California, Riverside, in an accompanying editorial.
“New data are emerging in favor of imaging-based classification of CV disease risk and has been shown to improve patient adherence to and compliance with risk-modifying interventions,” they write. “Subclinical atherosclerosis may help better stratify CV disease risk so that preventive measures can be instituted to reduce cardiovascular events at a population level.”
Dr. Fuster and coauthors, Dr. Ramdas and Dr. Pai, and Dr. Churchwell report no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.