November 25, 2025
A new study has revealed that widely used cardiac screening methods may be overlooking 45% of individuals who are genuinely at risk of a heart attack. The research, conducted by experts at the Mount Sinai, highlights a significant gap in current patient assessment practices, showing that depending solely on standard risk scores and symptoms may leave many vulnerable.
The findings, published in JACC: Advances, point to the dangers of silent plaque buildup in arteries—often undetected until it becomes life-threatening. Lead author Amir Ahmadi said population-based risk tools fail to capture true individual risk. He noted that if patients were assessed just two days before their heart attack, nearly half would not have qualified for further testing or preventive treatment under current guidelines.
Researchers evaluated two major tools—the traditional ASCVD risk score and a newer, more detailed model called PREVENT calculator—using data from 474 patients under age 66 with no known coronary artery disease. They found that:
- ASCVD would have classified almost 50% of patients as low or borderline risk.
- PREVENT would have misclassified more than 60% of them.
Additionally, 60% of patients reported no symptoms—such as chest discomfort or breathlessness—until less than two days before their heart attack, making symptom-based screening unreliable.
The study suggests shifting from symptom- and score-based evaluation to atherosclerosis imaging, which can detect silent plaque early and potentially prevent heart attacks before they occur.
Source: IANS