Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in England and Wales. As people living with HIV (PLWH) age, proactive management of CVD risk factors is crucial. The long-awaited draft guidelines for CVD from the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) propose lipid modification (with statins) and lifestyle modification for 40-74 year olds with >10% (previously >20%) 10-year risk of CVD using QRISK2. We currently use Framingham so compared 3 CVD risk calculators in our cohort and analyzed the impact of a change in CVD threshold on the proportion of our patients who would need intervention. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Framingham, QRISK2 and JBS3 cardiovascular risk calculators were compared in a group of randomly selected patients. Then, to analyze the impact of a change in primary prevention threshold on our cohort, we interrogated a prospectively collected database to identify all individuals who had a documented Framingham risk assessment and applied the current/proposed thresholds accordingly. We performed the same analysis for the three calculator subgroup (recalculating Framingham risk). Finally we surveyed HIV services in England & Wales regarding their choice of calculator. RESULTS: We compared the 3 CVD risk calculators in 100 patients, see Table 1. CONCLUSIONS: Reducing the threshold for cardiovascular preventative measures to 10% vastly increases the number of patients requiring primary intervention, from two- to fourfold depending on risk calculator used. This may have significant implications, including cost, drug-drug interactions and patient experience, that HIV physicians and general practitioners will need to address, ideally in a coordinated and patient-focused manner.