Abstract
Background: Prevention of sudden cardiac death (SCD) has, to date,
focused on individuals with advanced heart disease due to the high risk
of this population. Yet, the majority of SCD events occur in the general
population, in particular those without known heart disease. As
cardiovascular testing is generally not recommended in asymptomatic
individuals. Our aim was to define the diagnostic gap in the subgroup of
a primary care population deemed to be at moderate risk of SCD by a
recently developed risk score. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional
study of primary care patients from two large academic institutions and
excluded those with coronary artery disease, heart failure, and atrial
fibrillation. We calculated the SCD risk score and classified them into
low, intermediate and high-risk categories. We evaluated the period
prevalence and odds ratio (OR) of echocardiography and stress testing by
risk of SCD adjusted for age, gender, race, and ethnicity. Results: We
identified 36,885 patients without heart disease from both institutions
with a median SCD score of 9% (IQR 3.5-22). The period prevalence of
having an echocardiogram was 18% for those in the lowest SCD risk and
36% for those in the highest SCD risk group. The percentage of patients
who had a stress test was 18% for those in the lowest SCD risk and 23%
for those in the highest SCD risk group. The OR of having any test was
1.09 (1.00-1.18) for those in the intermediate risk category and 1.22
(1.09-1.37) for those in the highest risk category compared to those
with the lowest risk. Conclusions: In patients identified to be at
moderate risk for SCD in a primary care population, cardiovascular
testing occurs in only a third. It is possible that more extensive
cardiovascular screening of these patients could detect subclinical
disease associated with SCD risk.