deCODE MI™
Analyzes five SNPs in the CYP2C19 gene that affect response to the anti-platelet drug clopidogrel. This test identifies those who may need adjustment of their clopidogrel dose or who should be put on an alternative medicaiton to prevent recurrent adverse cardiovascular events.
Screening and prevention
How deCODE MI™ can help.
More Comprehensive Risk Assessment
Understanding a patient’s risk of cardiovascular disease is the prerequisite for effective prevention, including decisions and follow-through on life style modification and medication. deCODE MI™ detects genetic risk factors for heart attack that are independent of traditional risk factors, helping to provide a more complete picture of individual susceptibility as well as important information on risk of early-onset disease.
Integration with established risk modelling tools
The results of deCODE MI™ are presented as a numerical score of individual risk of heart attack compared to the population average. Because this risk is complementary to that conferred by traditional risk factors, deCODE MI™ results can be used directly to modify scores from the Framingham, Reynolds, or ARIC tools. This can impact the recommended prevention strategies and medication for a substantial proportion of patients.
Empowering physicians and patients
Preventive measures for MI are to a great extent dependent on successful changes in lifestyle. deCODE MI™ results can give physicians’ advice extra emphasis and impact, and provide their patients with additional incentive to follow through on that advice.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both women and men in western societies and coronary heart disease is the principal type of heart disease.
Worldwide, coronary heart disease kills more than 7 million people each year. In the US alone 494,392 people died from coronary heart disease in 2002. In 2002, age–adjusted death rates for diseases of the heart were also found to be 30% higher among African Americans than among Caucasians. In 2006, heart disease in the US was projected to cost more than $258 billion, including health care services, medications, and lost productivity. According to numbers for the years 1999 – 2002 the prevalence of the leading known, but at the same time manageable risk factors for coronary heart disease among persons 20 years and older, were:
- Hypertension or taking hypertension medications: 30.2 %
- High blood cholesterol: 17.3 %
- Diabetes diagnosed by physician: 6.5 %
- Obesity: 30.5 %
- Smoking: 21.6 % (18 years and older)
- Lack of physical exercise (no leisure–time physical activity in 2003): 37.6 %.
In 2003, approximately 37% of adults reported having two or more of the above six risk factors of cardiovascular diseases. Studies among people with heart disease have shown that lowering high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure can reduce the risk of dying of heart disease, having a nonfatal heart attack, or needing heart bypass surgery or angioplasty. The Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) expert panel on detection, evaluation, and treatment of high blood cholesterol in adults (Adult Treatment Panel III, September 2003) explicitly provides a role for emerging risk factors in adjusting the risk assessment as described above.
This content was last reviewed on January 25, 2011.