Predictive Performance of Cardiovascular Risk Scores in Cancer Survivors From the UK Biobank

Background

Cardiovascular preventive strategies are guided by risk scores with unknown validity in cancer cohorts.

Objectives

This study aimed to evaluate the predictive performance of 7 established cardiovascular risk scores in cancer survivors from the UK Biobank.

Methods

The predictive performance of QRISK3, Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation 2 (SCORE2)/Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation for Older Persons (SCORE-OP), Framingham Risk Score, Pooled Cohort equations to Prevent Heart Failure (PCP-HF), CHARGE-AF, QStroke, and CHA₂DS₂-VASc was calculated in participants with and without a history of cancer. Participants were propensity matched on age, sex, deprivation, health behaviors, family history, and metabolic conditions. Analyses were stratified into any cancer, breast, lung, prostate, brain/central nervous system, hematologic malignancies, Hodgkin lymphoma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Incident cardiovascular events were tracked through health record linkage over 10 years of follow-up. The area under the receiver operating curve, balanced accuracy, and sensitivity were reported.

Results

The analysis included 31,534 cancer survivors and 126,136 covariate-matched controls. Risk score distributions were near identical in cases and controls. Participants with any cancer had a significantly higher incidence of all cardiovascular outcomes than matched controls. Performance metrics were significantly worse for all risk scores in cancer cases than in matched controls. The most notable differences were among participants with a history of hematologic malignancies who had significantly higher outcome rates and poorer risk score performance than their matched controls. The performance of risk scores for predicting stroke in participants with brain/central nervous system cancer was very poor, with predictive accuracy more than 30% lower than noncancer controls.

Conclusions

Existing cardiovascular risk scores have significantly worse predictive accuracy in cancer survivors compared with noncancer comparators, leading to an underestimation of risk in this cohort.