Use Cardiovascular Risk Scores for Preventive Eye Care, Researchers Urge

Researchers advocate using the concept of pooled risk equations, which assess cardiovascular status, as a means of also estimating ocular vulnerability. Shown here is the calculation developed by the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association. Variables needed for risk score calculation are easily found in EHR systems, making it a potential way for primary care providers to routinely evaluate both ophthalmic and cardiovascular risk. Photo: American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association. Click image to enlarge. Heart disease and eye diseases are closely linked, as impaired blood flow and vascular damage can harm the eye’s vessels. Using electronic health records from the All of Us Research Program, UCLA researchers explored potential links between a cardiovascular risk score (called pooled cohort equations, or PCE) commonly used in primary care and the development of eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, retinal vein occlusion and hypertensive retinopathy. Their findings showed that higher risk score categories were indeed linked to increased chances of developing these conditions.The researchers categorized 35,909 individual scores into four risk categories: low (<5%), borderline (5% to 7.4%), intermediate (7.5% to 19.9%) and high (≥20%). Statistical analyses were adjusted for race, BMI, chronic kidney disease and education.High-risk category patients had the highest hazard ratios for all five diseases. The researchers reported that these findings were consistent in different follow-up periods. The PCE predictive performance was strongest for AMD, diabetic retinopathy and hypertensive retinopathy, and moderate for glaucoma and retinal vein occlusion.“These findings support the potential value of applying pooled cohort equations in primary care to identify at-risk individuals for ocular diseases and facilitate earlier preventive strategies,” the researchers concluded in their paper. They suggested including ophthalmic-specific factors and social determinants of health as variables to improve predictive performance.Click here for the journal source. Sun D, Tseng VL, Yu F, Coleman AL. Cardiovascular risk and eye health: A prospective cohort study of the pooled cohort equations and ocular disease incidence. Ophthalmology 2025. [Epub ahead of print]. This article was developed by the editorial staff in conjunction with experts in the field. In the process, AI may have been among the editorial tools used to meet the goals of human editors, who approved all content.