Early detection of coronary artery disease by polygenic risk scoring (EDCAD-PMS): an opportunity to start secondary prevention without a coronary event
Principal researchers: Professor Tom Marwick, Professor Peter Meikle, Professor Michael Inouye and Associate Professor Melinda Carrington
Associate researchers: Dr Kunal Verma and Dr Prasanna Venkataraman, Dr Yusuke Sata and Dr Nitesh Nerlekar
Research team: Ms Asmita Dalal, Ms Sally Kay and Ms Lilly Zhu
Identification of high risk individuals to apply primary prevention is presently done via a risk-factor based approach. However, this approach often misclassifies individuals and leaves many in the ‘intermediate’ category, for whom there is no clear preferred prevention strategy.
Coronary artery calcium (CAC) and polygenic risk scoring (PRS) are two tools for risk prediction to enhance the impact of effective management.
This research is seeking to develop a combined polygenic risk score and metabolic risk score to improve the selection of individuals who would benefit from further coronary artery calcium testing.
It is also evaluating whether a genetic risk approach or a CT imaging approach for presentation of results is most impactful to elicit adherence to pharmacotherapy and health behaviour change in asymptomatic individuals with subclinical atherosclerosis.