Australian and UK researchers have found that for those who already have an intermediate level of heart disease risk, adding genetic risk screening to other risk screening tools could prevent a cardiovascular event.
The cohort study published in PLOS Medicine showed that screening people for their genetic heart disease risk could help detect those likely to suffer a heart or stroke, allowing doctors to begin preventative treatment.
According to the researchers, targeted use of genetic screening could translate into meaningful clinical benefit if applied at scale and could lead to the prevention of 7% more cardiovascular events than conventional risk factors alone.
“Our results suggest that addition of polygenic risk scores to conventional risk factors can modestly enhance prediction of first-onset cardiovascular disease and could translate into population health benefits if used at scale,” conclude the researchers.
For more information and to read the study, visit: journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003498
