'False reassurance' given by some CVD risk assessment.

Traditional risk assessment applications for detecting cardiovascular illness in a female patient have always been for the most part pretty straightforward and spot-on. However, a recent study published in the Journal of Women's Health said that one of the methods of prediction isn't as accurate as it should be and gives women a "misleading" sense of safety.

The study is based on an evaluation of nearly 9,000 women across 14 cities who were screened for heart-health risks during the 2006 Sister to Sister: Everyone Has a Heart Foundation (Chevy Chase, Maryland) National Hearts Day, and shows that the Framingham Risk Score, a frequently used predictor for future heart problems scored nearly 85% of the women in the study as low risk for having coronary problems.

But most of the women studied showed a high prevalence of one or several risk factors for heart disease. Fully 40% had low levels of the good cholesterol (HDL) and 27% had elevated levels of the bad cholesterol (non-HDL). More than half had elevated blood pressure or pre-hypertension. Three-quarters were deemed overweight or obese.

And nearly half of the women were unaware of the association between risk factors such as high blood pressure and their own risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

The study found that nearly one in five of the women with a low-risk Framingham score had three or more risk factors for heart problems, with obesity being the most prevalent. This puts these women at increased lifetime risk for cardiovascular disease.

"First of all, the Framingham Risk Score is not a bad tool," Erin Michos, an author of the study told Diagnostics & Imaging Week. "But women tend to fall into the low risk category for developing heart disease when taking this assessment. The problem is, is that this assessment covers a 10-year period. So the score might come out low--but this can certainly lead to a false reassurance."

Michos, along with Dr. Roger Blumenthal, professor of medicine and director of the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease, (Baltimore), and Irene Pollin, PhD, founder and president of the Sister to Sister: Everyone Has a Heart Foundation, ...