These 5 tests can help predict heart disease

Cardiologists from University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas have developed a program comprising five simple medical tests that together can provide an accurate assessment of someone’s risk for developing heart disease.

The tests—including an electrocardiogram (EKG), a limited CT scan and three blood tests—are more effective at determining someone’s risk than methods currently used, according to the study published in Circulation. The study was partly funded by NASA, which is interested in developing strategies for predicting heart disease in astronauts.

Current methods focus on blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes and smoking history, but they aren’t necessarily the most important factors that contribute to heart disease, said James de Lemos, MD, an author on the study and a professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern.

“This set of tests is really powerful in identifying unexpected risk among individuals with few traditional risk factors,” he said. “These are people who would not be aware that they are at risk for heart disease and might not be targeted for preventive therapies.”

The researchers found that a 12-lead EKG provides information about a patient’s hypertrophy levels, and the CT scan identifies calcified plaque buildup in the arteries. The three blood tests are conducted to identify a C-reactive protein that indicates inflammation, the hormone NT-proBNP and high-sensitivity troponin T, which indicates heart damage.

To get their results, the researchers studied data from two large population studies, one of which was the Dallas Heart Study that followed healthy individuals for more than a decade. The researchers used this to study cardiovascular disease events on a broad spectrum, rather than those only related to cholesterol plaque buildup.

“A major focus of this study is to expand the scope of risk prediction beyond just heart attack and stroke,” said Amit Khera, MD, professor of internal medicine and director of UT Southwestern’s Preventive Cardiology Program. “We believe that people are interested in the whole portfolio of heart problems that can develop including heart failure and atrial fibrillation.”

The five tests together proved in the study that they expand risk prediction to include the likelihood of heart failure, atrial fibrillation, heart attack and stroke better than current methods.

“There has been a real need to bring modern science to the problem of heart disease risk prediction, which has relied on traditional risk factors for decades” de Lemos said. “We wanted to determine whether advances in imaging and blood-based biomarkers could help us to better identify who was at risk for heart disease.” 

Though the tests can be useful in determining heart disease risk, the authors emphasized that they should only be conducted by qualified cardiologists that can interpret the results correctly.

Other support for the study was provided by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health and Roche Diagnostics.