Escalas de cálculo del riesgo cardiovascular para pacientes con diabetes. ¿Qué son y de qué nos sirven?

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the first cause of death in patients with diabetes mellitus. Cardiovascular mortality is between 2 and 4 times as high as the risk of matched controls in the general population. Although practice guidelines recommend calculating CVD risk in diabetes, few models for estimating cardiovascular risk have been developed specifically for diabetic patients. The first ones, taking into account HbA1c and diabetes duration plus classical risk factors, is not contemporary and perform sub-optimally in different populations with diabetes. Constructing updated population-derived and externally validated cardiovascular risk models will yield more aggressive patient-centered preventive interventions to curb the ongoing epidemic of CVD in patients with diabetes.