An integrated assessment of family history on the risk of developing acute coronary syndromes (CARDIO2000 study)

OBJECTIVE: In this work we assessed a risk score for developing a first event of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) based on the family history of the cardiovascular risk factors. METHODS AND RESULTS: The studied population consisted of 848 randomly selected middle-aged patients with first event of ACS and 1078 sex-age-region matched controls admitted to the same hospitals for minor operations and without any clinical suspicion of cardiovascular disease in their life. A Family History Score (FHS) was developed based on the presence of coronary heart disease, hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia and diabetes mellitus, among first-degree relatives of the participants after adjusting for the family size. The evaluation of FHS was based on conditional logistic regression analysis, after controlling for demographic variables as well as for the mutual confounding effects of other risk factors. Family history of CHD, hypercholesterolaemia and diabetes was highly associated with the development of the disease. The introduced FHS was also highly associated with the development of ACS among participants who had no family history of CHD (odds ratio = 10.9, p < 0.001), whereas it was not associated with the development of the disease among participants who had a family history of CHD (odds ratio = 1.41, p = 0.543). CONCLUSIONS: The suggested FHS could be a useful tool in the primary prevention of ACS, as well as in detecting and understanding associations between genetic vulnerability and cardiovascular risk factors.