Doctors no longer have to use Framingham equation to assessheart disease risk, NICE says

Healthcare professionals in the United Kingdom should use the cardiovascular risk assessment tool they consider most appropriate when assessing whether to prescribe lipid modifying therapy for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease, an updated guideline from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said this week.

It downgrades the previous recommendation that the US derived Framingham risk equation should be used as the risk scoring tool of choice.

The NICE guideline recommends that healthcare professionals use a systematic strategy for identifying people likely to be at high risk for cardiovascular disease who would benefit from lipid modifying therapy.

The guideline recommends use of a risk equation to assess …