Score2: A New Updated Algorithm to Predict Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Europe

Abstract

The recently published guidelines of the European Society of Cardiology for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases presented in August 2021 at the virtual European Society of Cardiology congress recommend the use of the SCORE2 risk index instead of the classic SCORE risk index to calculate the cardiovascular risk (specifically, ten-year fatal and nonfatal risk) in a healthy population under the age of 70 years, with a level of evidence IB. This new risk index was developed with the collaboration of about 200 investigators, including 45 cohorts in 13 countries with 700,000 participants, and covers the known risk factors for heart and circulatory diseases such as age, sex, lipid levels, blood pressure, and smoking. In addition, it divides the countries into four groups of risk and uses a competing risk model, adjusting the risk for the probability of having another event, which enables better estimation of the risk of fatal and nonfatal events in a younger population (40-69 years).