Tag Archives: risk stratification

Introduction Compared with the general population, life-expectancy for people with intellectual disability (ID) is 13 years lower in men and 20 years lower in women.1 Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of mortality in ID patients, accounting for 21% of all adult deaths.2 The Dutch Healthy Ageing and Intellectual Disability (HA-ID) study found similar levels of CVD risk in ID patients over 50 years as age-matched controls.3 However, CVDs are significantly underdiagnosed and undermanaged in people with ID. In one study, only 15% of patients with ID who died from CVD had a documented CVD risk assessment.1,2 Assessment of CVD ri

Introduction Syncope is defined as a transient loss of consciousness (TLoC) secondary to cerebral hypoperfusion, associated with loss of tone and spontaneous recovery.1 It has a lifetime prevalence of 20%,2 and an incidence of 0.80–0.93 per 1,000 person-years, which occurs in a roughly bimodal pattern, with an initial peak in early adulthood followed by a further more pronounced peak in older age.3 Syncope is merely one form of TLoC. Other causes of TLoC include seizures, sleep disturbance, accidental falls and some psychiatric disorders. Syncope itself can be grouped into four major categories: reflex syncope (vasovagal and situational), o

Emerging evidence In an issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, Xie et al.1 performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to validate the prognostic importance of CAC scoring in non-triggered thoracic CT. The authors of this study performed a meta-analysis of five studies that compared CAC obtained using non-gated CT scans versus gated CT scans. This study demonstrated an excellent correlation between the two techniques with a pooled Cohen κ agreement being 0.89 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.83–0.95). While this is promising, the authors have also highlighted some discrepancy between the two techniques, and this is important to

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Introduction Risk stratification is important in the assessment of cardiac patients enrolled in physical training programmes to ensure that these patients receive the appropriate levels of surveillance and exercise intensity. Risk levels, an estimate of the likelihood of future cardiac events, are indicated as low, moderate or high. Poor left ventricular (LV) function is the most important risk factor for death.1,2 The gold standard for assessing LV function is echocardiography but this is expensive and is often not available to cardiac rehabilitation co-ordinators. The additional information provided by plasma B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP

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