Performance evaluation of 10-year ultrasound image-based stroke/cardiovascular (CV) risk calculator by comparing against ten conventional CV risk calculators: A diabetic study

Motivation: AtheroEdge Composite Risk Score (AECRS1.010yr) is an integrated stroke/cardiovascular risk calculator that was recently developed and computes the 10-year risk of carotid image phenotypes by integrating conventional cardiovascular risk factors (CCVRFs). It is therefore important to understand how closely AECRS1.010yr is associated with the ten other currently available conventional cardiovascular risk calculators (CCVRCs). Methods: The Institutional Review Board of Toho University approved the examination of the left/right common carotid arteries of 202 Japanese patients. Step 1 consists of measurement of AECRS1.010yr given current image phenotypes and CCVRFs. Step 2 consists of computing the risk score using ten different CCVRCs given CCVR factors: QRISK3, Framingham Risk Score (FRS), United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) 56, UKPDS60, Reynolds Risk Score (RRS), Pooled cohort Risk Score (PCRS or ASCVD), Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (SCORE), Prospective Cardiovascular Munster Study (PROCAM) calculator, NIPPON, and World Health Organization (WHO) risk. Step 3 consists of computing the closeness factor between AECRS1.010yr and ten CCVRCs using cumulative ranking index derived using eight different statistically derived metrics. Results: AECRS1.010yr reported the highest area-under-the-curve (0.927;P < 0.001) among all the risk calculators. The top three CCVRCs closest to AECRS1.010yr were QRISK3, FRS, and UKPDS60 with cumulative ranking scores of 2.1, 3.0, and 3.8, respectively. Conclusion: AECRS1.010yr produced the largest AUC due to the integration of image-based phenotypes with CCVR factors, and ranked at first place with the highest AUC. Cumulative ranking of ten CCVRCs demonstrated that QRISK3 was the closest calculator to AECRS1.010yr, which is also consistent with the industry trend.