A new blood test developed by scientists can predict if someone is at high risk of a heart attack, stroke, heart failure or dying from these conditions in the next four years.
The test makes use of measurements of proteins in the blood and is claimed to be twice as accurate compared to existing testing methodologies.
To get this accurate testing methodology, researchers made use of machine learning to analyse 5,000 proteins in blood plasma samples from 22,849 individuals and identify a signature of 27 proteins that could predict the four-year likelihood of heart attack, stroke, heart failure and even death.
They validated the results in 11,609 individuals only to find that the model was twice as good as the existing risk scores, based on an individual’s age, sex, race and medical history.
The test is also able to accurately denote risk in individuals who have had a heart attack or a stroke in the past and are taking drugs to curb their risk.
This can be used to help doctors determine if a patient’s existing medications are working and if in case they need additional medication to reduce the risk further. This test could also help in the quicker development of new cardiovascular drugs.
Researchers claim that the test could be used as a surrogate endpoint in clinical trials to assess how well experimental therapies were working instead of waiting months or years for a patient’s health to get either better or worse, slowing down the rate of drug development more.
