A single blood test was found to predict cardiovascular events in women over a 30-year period, according to a study published Aug. 31 in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Boston Children's Hospital, all based in Boston, analyzed data from the Women's Health Study collected between 1992 and 1995 with a 30-year follow-up period.
Data from a cohort of 27,939 women who provided a baseline measurement of high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and lipoprotein(a) with a 30-year follow-up was assessed for "occurrence of incident myocardial infarction, coronary revascularization procedures, stroke or death from cardiovascular causes," according to the study.
Of the 3,662 cardiovascular events that occurred in the cohort, the original baseline measurements had all predicted a 30-year risk.
"Beyond implications for diagnostics, wellness interventions and the selection of targeted therapy, these data strongly support the need for efforts to extend strategies for the primary prevention of atherosclerotic events well beyond traditional 10-year estimates of risk," the study authors wrote.