Simple integer risk score to determine prognosis of patients with hypertension and chronic stable coronary artery disease.

BACKGROUND

It is difficult to accurately determine prognosis of patients with hypertension and chronic stable coronary artery disease (CAD). Our aim was to construct a risk score for predicting important adverse events in this population.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Patients with hypertension and chronic stable CAD enrolled in the INternational VErapamil-SR/Trandolapril STudy (INVEST) comprised the study cohort. Candidate predictor variables were obtained from patients with at least 1 postbaseline visit. Patients were divided into development (n=18 484) and validation cohorts (n=2054). Cox regression model identified predictors of the primary outcome: all-cause mortality, myocardial infarction, or stroke at a mean follow-up of 2.3 years. The hazard ratio of each variable was rounded to the nearest integer to construct score weights. A score 0 to 4 defined low-risk, 5 to 6 intermediate-risk and ≥7 high-risk. The following variables were retained in the final model: age, residence, body mass index, on-treatment heart rate and BP, prior myocardial infarction, heart failure, stroke/transient ischemic attack, smoking, diabetes, peripheral arterial disease, and chronic kidney disease. The primary outcome occurred in 2.9% of the low-risk group, 6.5% of the intermediate-risk group, and 18.0% of the high-risk group (P for trend <0.0001). The model was good at discriminating those who had an event versus those who did not (C-statistic=0.75). The model performed well in a validation cohort (C-statistic=0.77).

CONCLUSION

Readily available clinical variables can rapidly stratify patients with hypertension and chronic stable CAD into useful risk categories.