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Risk factors

New risk-assessment guidelines—more or less personalized?

The new ACC/AHA cardiovascular-risk guidelines feature updated equations for women, distinct equations for African–American individuals, and include stroke prediction. However, the equations rely on the same traditional risk factors as previous versions, are driven predominantly by age, and curtail the intermediate-risk group, in which personalized risk assessment is recommended.

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Figure 1: The Framingham Risk Score, and adapted versions in previous guidelines, was used to identify a large group of intermediate-risk patients for whom further testing to enhance risk stratification was recommended.

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Correspondence to Michael J. Blaha.

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Blaha, M., Blumenthal, R. New risk-assessment guidelines—more or less personalized?. Nat Rev Cardiol 11, 136–137 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2013.216

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