Inclusion of hazardous drinking does not improve the SCORE performance in men from Central and Eastern Europe: the findings from the HAPIEE cohorts
Abstract
Background: The SCORE (Systematic COronary Risk Evaluation) scale uses conventional risk factors for the prediction of the 10-year risk of fatal atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD). The high-risk version of SCORE is recommended by the European Society of Cardiology for use in the populations of Central and Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union (CEE/FSU).
Given the role of hazardous alcohol consumption as an important determinant of CVD mortality in CEE/FSU men, this study investigated whether adding hazardous drinking characteristics to the high-risk SCORE improves its prognostic performance in contemporary population-based male CEE/FSU cohorts. Methods: The HAPIEE (Health, Alcohol, and Psychosocial factors In Eastern Europe) study follows Czech (seven towns), Polish (Krakow), and Russian (Novosibirsk) cohorts from 2002-2005.
In HAPIEE men (n = 8,927), 264 atherosclerotic cardiovascular deaths were registered over the median follow-up time of 6.2-8.1 years. Results: In HAPIEE men, the baseline levels of the high-risk SCORE >= 5% significantly predicted fatal CVD.
After controlling for the high-risk SCORE, binge drinking (drinking >= 100 g of ethanol at least once a month) and problem drinking (>= 2 positive answers to CAGE questionnaire) were inconsistently associated with fatal CVD. No marked improvement in calibration and discrimination was observed for the high-risk SCORE extended by these hazardous drinking indicators, and all values of integrated discrimination improvement were <0.5%.
Conclusions: Extending the high-risk SCORE by hazardous drinking parameters failed to improve its prognostic performance across male CEE/FSU population samples. Our findings tentatively support the use of the original high-risk SCORE in male CEE/FSU populations.
More research is needed on the potential use of hazardous drinking in cardiovascular risk prediction.