QRisk 2 - to use or not to use - that is the question - Essay Example

2008)). Previously few other criterias like Framingham’s criteria to assess cardiovascular risk factors and QRISK1 are used so this new model is a point of discussion that either it has some significance in the developing era or not.(Brindle, 2011). This requires collection of data from several studies which have been conducted in the recent past to compare between these models.(Hippisley-Cox, Coupland, et all. 2008). Generally, they all pointed out that using QRISk 2 is not have similar effectiveness like the traditional previous criteria as the risk factors described in this score are not single most important risk factors for development of cardiovascular diseases but they have utmost importance.

(Vogel, Bernitez, 2000). RATIONALE: Cardiovascular risk factors predict 5-10 year risk of development of cardiovascular disease as well as resulting mortality and morbidity from that. (Koenig, 2003). There are few cardiac risk factors which have been defined previously like increase age, male gender, smoking status, presence of Hypertension, Hyperlipidemias, Type 2 diabetes etc. presence of all or one of these factors leads to increase tendency towards development of cardiovascular disease.(Mola, Lloyd, 2002).

There are few other factors which are recently developed. These include ethnicity of the patient, presence of rheumatoid arthritis, atrial fibrillation, chronic kidney disease and treated hypertension. Data shows that they also influence future prediction of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. (Collins, Altman, 2010). CONS OF QRISK2: By using QRISK 2, we can find out some high risk persons who are at risk of developing disease(Hayman, Kamau, 2009) It also provides benefit by treating the patients who are labeled as low risk by traditional framinghom’s criteria.

(Mayor, 2010) Advantage of this system is that traditionally larger numbers of data can be included in the database. (Hippisley, Coupland, 2008) It is also the first study which uses so many factors as a risk of cardiovascular disease.(Parkes, 2010) Inclusion of ethnicity is also found to be important by some people as few diseases are more popular in a specific population (Giampaoli, Palmieri, 2004) Stroke is more common in older ones and poor countries. (Scott, 2010). QRISK system also addresses the problem of different effects on risk factors of increasing age(Vanuzzu, Pilotto, 2008) so they have introduced interaction variables between age and other risk factors to overcome this problem.

(Cooney, Dudina, Graham,2009) PROS OF QRISK2: It results in superior age estimation in older age group. (Weirzbicki, 2009) QRISK over predicted the patients in only 0.4% of cases but it under predicted in 12% of cases.(Dalton, Soljak, 2011). It measures blood pressure and BMI accurately but cholesterol measurement is poor. A study shows that it measured cholesterol of only 30% people who are at risk of developing disease.(Thomas, 2011). Also there is no validation of events and everything is based on computer records.

Patients are included at different times in this system. Most of the patients do not follow ten years data. This score is not validated in population other than British.(Chia, 2011). It also has another disadvantage. As it is using age as a factor for cardiovascular disease risk, it is unable to identify those who are at risk but younger. As compare to some other trials