Novel Biomarker 100% Better than Framingham Risk Score at Predicting Coronary Artery Disease

Bio-Medpoint’s new Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) detection system is set to revolutionize heart disease prevention. Tests using this new method were 94% accurate in revealing study participants with CAD compared to 42% accuracy with the Framingham Risk Score (FRS).

Currently the only way to predict a patient’s likelihood of getting heart disease is by patient history, or the FRS which estimates the chances a person will have a cardiac event in the next 10 years. Unfortunately, these have low accuracy.

Meanwhile, CAD kills 370,000 Americans a year and costs the nation $109 billion each year. Early detection can lead to improved treatment — saving lives, improving the quality of life, and reducing the heavy financial expense of this disease. To tackle the problem, a leading research university approached prediction from a different direction with remarkable results.

Simple Blood Test

Bio-MedPoint’s screening tool uses a small sample of blood serum— either from the vein or a finger-stick— and passes it through a quick screening tool.


Computer algorithms not only show evidence of the disease, they also indicate varying degrees of disease— from healthy to high probability of CAD. Then it lists the results in a Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) score.

Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is a generalization of Fisher’s linear discriminant, a method used in statistics, pattern recognition and machine learning to find a linear combination of features that characterizes or separates two or more classes of objects or events.

The technology uses equipment already standard in labs so no new hardware is needed to use this technology. It easily integrates with Beckman & Coulter Capillary Zone Electrophoresis which is in about 5,000 labs in the country.

This capillary electrophoresis system gives faster results. Doctors can find test results in less than an hour. There is no other test available with such a high accuracy and quick turn-around time.

Rethinking Framingham Score

The Framingham model was designed to predict heart risk based on five factors — age, gender, cholesterol levels, blood pressure and smoking status. Heart experts have been concerned that the model does not considers family history of heart disease, which recent studies show can play a role in an individual’s risk.

 

The model is based on a study in the 1960s. And findings hint, that it’s time for an update to the decades-old model. Discussion about how globally useful the Framingham risk score remains, since its original cohort was not as ethnically diverse as is our current population (TIME.COM).