RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Generic and disease-adapted cardiovascular risk scores as predictors of atherosclerosis progression in SLE JF Lupus Science & Medicine JO Lupus Sci Med FD Lupus Foundation of America SP e000864 DO 10.1136/lupus-2022-000864 VO 10 IS 1 A1 Panopoulos, Stylianos A1 Drosos, George C A1 Konstantonis, George A1 Sfikakis, Petros P A1 Tektonidou, Maria G YR 2023 UL http://lupus.bmj.com/content/10/1/e000864.abstract AB Objective Studies show that generic cardiovascular risk (CVR) prediction tools may underestimate CVR in SLE. We examined, for the first time to our knowledge, whether generic and disease-adapted CVR scores may predict subclinical atherosclerosis progression in SLE.Methods We included all eligible patients with SLE without a history of cardiovascular events or diabetes mellitus, who had a 3-year carotid and femoral ultrasound follow-up examination. Five generic (Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE), Framingham Risk Score (FRS), Pooled Cohort Risk Equation, Globorisk, Prospective Cardiovascular Münster) and three ‘SLE-adapted’ CVR scores (modified Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (mSCORE), modified Framingham Risk Score (mFRS), QRESEARCH Risk Estimator V.3 (QRISK3)) were calculated at baseline. The performance of CVR scores to predict atherosclerosis progression (defined as new atherosclerotic plaque development) was tested with Brier Score (BS), area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) and Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC), while rank correlation was tested with Harrell’s c-index. Binary logistic regression was also applied to examine determinants of subclinical atherosclerosis progression.Results Twenty-six (21%) of 124 included patients (90% female, mean age 44.4±11.7 years) developed new atherosclerotic plaques after a mean of 39.7±3.8 months’ follow-up period. Performance analysis showed that plaque progression was better predicted by the mFRS (BS 0.14, AUROC 0.80, MCC 0.22) and QRISK3 (BS 0.16, AUROC 0.75, MCC 0.25). c-Index showed no superiority for discrimination between mFRS and QRISK3. In the multivariate analysis, QRISK3 (OR 4.24, 95% CI 1.30 to 13.78, p=0.016) among the CVR prediction scores and age (OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.21, p<0.001), cumulative glucocorticoid dose (OR 1.04, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.07, p=0.010) and antiphospholipid antibodies (OR 3.66, 95% CI 1.24 to 10.80, p=0.019) among disease-related CVR factors were independently associated with plaque progression.Conclusions Application of SLE-adapted CVR scores such as QRISK3 or mFRS, as well as monitoring for glucocorticoid exposure and the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies, can help to improve CVR assessment and management in SLE.Data are available upon reasonable request. All data analysed in this study are available by a reasonable request to the corresponding author.