Reclassification of European patients’ cardiovascular risk using the updated Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation algorithm

Data from the European Study on Cardiovascular Risk Prevention and Management in Usual Daily Practice (EURIKA; ClinicalTrials.gov; NCT00882336) was used to assess the proportions of patients aged 50–65 years free of diabetes and not receiving lipid-lowering therapy (LLT) considered to be at low (<1%), intermediate (1% to <5%) and high (≥5%) 10-year risk of cardiovascular mortality according to the Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE) algorithm and the updated algorithm that considers patients’ total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels as independent variables (SCORE-HDL). Of 2321 patients analysed, 19.3%, 60.7% and 20.0% were considered to be at low, intermediate and high cardiovascular risk respectively according to SCORE, and 25.7%, 57.2% and 17.1% respectively according to SCORE-HDL. Thus, there was an overall trend towards reclassification from higher to lower risk categories when SCORE-HDL was compared with SCORE.