The online Absolute CVD Risk/Benefit Calculator tool1 helps estimate a patient’s risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) as smiley/sad face icons and enables the clinician to show the patient estimates of the benefits and harms for single interventions (e.g. diet, activity, statins, blood pressure medications).
It now has the PREDICT data from New Zealand which takes into account the fact that coronary heart disease has reduced 90% since the 1950s when the original Framingham equation was created. There are some caveats, e.g. cannot use for over 80-year-olds.
The tool is best used for demonstrating the impact that statins, blood pressure lowering, diet, aspirin and exercise have on CVD risk. It is not useful when discussing taking insulin, as there is an absence of evidence for insulin and CVD.
A 65-year-old man with a 12% CVD risk on the old tables has a 6% risk on the new ones.
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