Objective: Menopause, particularly its early stage (≤3 years from onset), may be an important risk factor for premature coronary artery disease. The objective of the study was to assess whether the addition of the presence of menopause in women with premature coronary artery disease could improve the predictive value of the Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease risk estimator and the Systematic COronary Risk Evaluation model.
Methods: The case-control study included 307 women with coronary artery disease aged 55 or less, and 347 age-matched controls without coronary artery disease. Diagnostic accuracy parameters were evaluated for traditional risk models versus those enriched with menopausal status. Early and late postmenopausal periods were defined as ≤3 and >3 years from the onset of menopause, respectively.
Results: Only the addition of the presence of the early postmenopausal stage to the 10-year Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease risk classes resulted in significantly increased c-statistics from 0.66 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.62-0.7) to 0.705 (95%CI 0.66-0.75) (P = 0.0003) and an increase of accuracy from 61.3% to 63.8% (P = 0.0025).Adding the presence of early postmenopause to the Systematic COronary Risk Evaluation risk classes also resulted in significantly increased c-statistics from 0.59 (95% CI 0.55-0.63) to 0.641 (95%CI 0.6-0.68) (P = 0.0024) and an increase of accuracy from 64.1% versus 57.5% (P = 0.001).
Conclusion: Adding the early menopausal period may significantly improve the predictive value of the 10-year Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease risk score and the Systematic COronary Risk Evaluation model in women with premature coronary artery disease.