Additive value of polygenic risk and family history for coronary heart disease risk stratification in two diverse US cohorts.

Abstract

Whether polygenic risk, monogenic familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), and family history (FamHx) are additively informative for coronary heart disease (CHD) risk prediction across self-identified race/ethnicity (SIRE) groups has not been established. In two diverse cohorts-Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) phase IV (eIV; n = 19,348) and All of Us (AoU; n = 239,645)-we quantified the associations of a polygenic risk score (PRSCHD), pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants in genes associated with FH, and FamHx with CHD and evaluated their incremental value when added to the pooled cohort equations (PCEs). CHD was defined as myocardial infarction, unstable angina, or coronary revascularization. We modeled associations with multivariable logistic regression (prevalent CHD in eIV) and Cox proportional hazards (incident CHD in AoU) and characterized predictive performance with the c-statistic and reclassification and decision-curve net benefits across actionable 10-year risk thresholds. The effects of PRSCHD and FamHx were independent and additive in both cohorts and consistent across White, Black, and Latino SIRE groups. In eIV, adding PRSCHD and FamHx to the PCE increased the c-statistic for prevalent CHD from 0.719 to 0.753 (p-diff = 9.1 × 10-3) and reclassified 18.8% of participants at the 7.5% 10-year threshold, yielding approximately 4 additional true-positive CHD identifications per 1,000 screened. Net benefit gains were observed between the 7.5% and 10% thresholds across all three SIRE groups. In conclusion, PRSCHD and FamHx were independently and additively associated with CHD across major SIRE groups in two diverse cohorts in the United States (US), motivating the addition of these factors to clinical risk algorithms.