A new 'risk calculator' for heart disease - who should take statins?

Last week in JAMA, Dr Rita Redberg, Dr John Abramson, and I challenged the push to lower the risk threshold for prescribing statins because it will not improve patient outcomes.

Currently, around 45 million Americans are prescribed statins to lower cholesterol and reduce their risk of heart disease.

Since 2013, doctors have relied on a risk calculator - developed by the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Cardiology (ACC) - to determine who should or shouldn’t be on statins.

This calculator, known as the ASCVD (Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease) tool, assesses a person’s 10-year risk based on factors such as age, sex, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, smoking history, and diabetes status.

Under these guidelines, individuals are generally recommended statins if their cardiovascular risk is 7.5% or higher.

A New Heart Risk Calculator

In 2023, the AHA introduced a new risk assessment tool called PREVENT, aimed at providing a more precise and comprehensive evaluation of cardiovascular risk.