Cardiovascular disease risk profiles.

This article presents prediction equations for several cardiovascular disease endpoints, which are based on measurements of several known risk factors. Subjects (n = 5573) were original and offspring subjects in the Framingham Heart Study, aged 30 to 74 years, and initially free of cardiovascular disease. Equations to predict risk for the following were developed: myocardial infarction, coronary heart disease (CHD), death from CHD, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and death from cardiovascular disease. The equations demonstrated the potential importance of controlling multiple risk factors (blood pressure, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, smoking, glucose intolerance, and left ventricular hypertrophy) as opposed to focusing on one single risk factor. The parametric model used was seen to have several advantages over existing standard regression models. Unlike logistic regression, it can provide predictions for different lengths of time, and probabilities can be expressed in a more straightforward way than the Cox proportional hazards model.