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Cardiovascular disease

Committed to helping you identify cardiovascular risk

An estimated 80% of cardiovascular disease (CVD), including heart disease and stroke, is preventable. However, CVD remains the leading cause of death and the most expensive disease, costing nearly $1 billion a day.1

Guidelines are evolving to implement new kinds of cardiovascular diagnostic and prognostic testing services aimed at prevention and early intervention.

Quest Diagnostics is at the forefront, committed to providing innovative solutions that provide additional and complementary insight to help identify those most at risk.

Going beyond standard lipid panels to assess lipoprotein, apolipoprotein, inflammatory, metabolic, and genetic risk factors may provide deeper insights into the residual risk of your patients.

Advanced biomarkers have been shown to help identify residual risk and have been adopted by several practice guidelines and professional societies.2,3 With deeper insights, you can take further action to help reduce your patients’ risk for adverse cardiovascular events. 

Nearly 50% of all heart attacks and strokes occur in patients with “normal” cholesterol levels. Recent evidence goes beyond lipids to suggest that inflammation within the artery wall is the primary contributor to this residual risk for heart attack and stroke. Inflammation contributes to both vulnerable plaque formation and to plaque rupture.4

The beginnings of CVD are rooted in injury to the arterial wall. Risk factors like smoking, hypertension, and diabetes injure the arterial wall, making it more susceptible to penetration and accumulation of excess lipids.

The inflammatory response to injury contributes to the progression of plaque development and is a key factor in the formation of vulnerable plaque and plaque rupture, which may cause a heart attack or stroke. 

Patients who have metabolic syndrome are at higher risk of multiple chronic conditions, including diabetes, coronary heart disease, and cancer, as well as stroke. Metabolic syndrome has become increasingly common: its prevalence has risen in every sociodemographic group, and today it is estimated that more than a third of adults in the United States have metabolic risk.5

The recently updated ACCF/AHA guidelines for the management of heart failure recommend BNP or NT-proBNP biomarker testing followed by early intervention as an aid for prevention. Quest offers advanced biomarker testing to help prevent heart failure in your at-risk patients.

In many patients, the risk of CVD may be attributed to nonlipid factors, including genetic polymorphisms and mutations. Quest offers cardiogenetic testing to aid in early diagnosis and earlier treatment for affected patients as well as family members.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in women, taking the lives of over 300,000 women in the US in 2020.6

While women and men share the 3 most common risk factors for CVD—hypertension, high low-density lipoproteincholesterol (LDL-C), and smoking6-8—there are unique risk-enhancing factors for women at every stage of life.

Learn more

Defining the intersection of chronic conditions: a prevention-focused approach to cardiometabolic disease

With more people at risk for cardiovascular disease than ever before, the Quest Cardiometabolic Center of Excellence™ at Cleveland HeartLab® is advancing a prevention-focused approach for heart disease and associated metabolic conditions.

  • Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for individuals who have type 2 diabetes (T2DM),9 stage 4-5 chronic kidney disease (CKD),2 and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)3
  • Those who have T2DM have a 2 to 3 times higher risk of fatal coronary heart disease10
  • Nearly 40% of persons who have diabetes and more than 30% of those who have hypertension also have CKD.11 The leading causes of end-stage renal disease are diabetes and hypertension12
  • More than 75% of those who have T2DM have NAFLD13

CVD is strongly associated with T2DM, CKD, and NAFLD. Through significant investments in novel technology, the Cleveland HeartLab® is fostering innovation to detect these conditions in their early stages, providing the opportunity for stage-targeted intervention and improved clinical outcomes.

A comprehensive range of testing

Lipid markers
Advanced lipid testing
Inflammation testing
Metabolic testing
Cardiogenetic testing
Heart failure testing
Non-lipid markers for CVD
CVD test descriptions
Early identification of CVD risk in women

The power of Quest Cardiometabolic Center of Excellence™ at Cleveland HeartLab®

Comprehensive risk assessment tools 

Our comprehensive approach includes assays that determine traditional risk factors, state-of-the-art genetic testing, and tests for novel cardiovascular biomarkers and lipoprotein particle size. This comprehensive array of tests helps clinicians accurately identify and stratify risk, and guide individualized treatment for cardiovascular disease patients with high levels of confidence.

Enhanced reporting with Cardio IQ® 

Cardio IQ® Testing can offer a more complete picture of your patients’ cardiovascular health, offering a more advanced approach to lipid subclass characterization. With the Cardio IQ® Report, you can gain deeper insights into the individual residual risks of your patients with color-coded progressive risk values, functional category grouping, and inclusive history of prior Cardio IQ® reports.

Personalized patient care with 4myheart® clinical educators

The 4myheart® Program utilizes clinical educators that use the test results to customize each patient’s education about nutrition, exercise, stress management, and therapy adherence, pursuant to each clinician’s treatment plan. Through our combination of lipid testing technology, esoteric testing capability, and patient support services, we provide clinicians and patients with a viable disease management offering for cardiovascular disease prevention.

Access to our experts to interpret results

Our team of genetic counselors is available to guide medical professionals in appropriate test selection and interpretation of results. We also connect patients with external genetic counselors as needed.

This information is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. A physician’s test selection and interpretation, diagnosis, and patient management decisions should be based on his/her education, clinical expertise, and assessment of the patient.

 

References

  1. American Heart Association. CDC prevention programs. Updated May 18, 2018. Accessed June 25, 2021. https://www.heart.org/en/get-involved/advocate/federal-priorities/cdc-prevention-programs
  2. National Cholesterol Education Panel. 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) final report. Circulation. 2002;106(25):3143-3421.
  3. Davidson MH, Corson MA, Alberts MJ, et al. Consensus panel recommendation for incorporating lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 testing into cardiovascular disease risk assessment guidelines. Am J Cardiol. 2008;101(12A):51F-57F. doi:10.1016/j.amjcard.2008.04.019
  4. Sachdeva A, Cannon CP, Deedwania PC, et al. Lipid levels in patients hospitalized with coronary artery disease: an analysis of 136,905 hospitalizations in get with the guidelines. Am Heart J. 2009;157(1):111-117. doi:10.1016/j.ahj.2008.08.010
  5. Moore JX, Chaudhary N, Akinyemiju T. Metabolic syndrome prevalence by race/ethnicity and sex in the United States, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988–2012. Prev Chronic Dis. 2017;14:e24. doi:10.5888/pcd14.160287
  6. CDC.Women and heart disease.Reviewed October 14, 2022. Accessed November 9, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/women.htm
  7. Arnett DK, Blumenthal RS, AlbertMA, et al. 2019 ACC/AHA guideline on the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines. Circulation. 2019;140(11):e596-e646. doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000000678
  8. Yusuf S,Hawken S,Ounpuu S, et al. Effect of potentially modifiable risk factors associated withmyocardial infarction in 52 countries (the INTERHEART study): case-control study. Lancet. 2004;364(9438):937-952. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(04)17018-9
  9. Lamarche B, Tchernof A, Moorjani S, et al. Small, dense low-density lipoprotein particles as a predictor of the risk of ischemic heart disease inmen. Prospective results fromthe Québec Cardiovascular Study. Circulation. 1997;95(1):69-75.
  10. Fox CS, Sullivan L, D’Agostino R, et al. The significant effect of diabetes duration on coronary heart disease mortality. Diabetes Care. 2004;27(3):704-708. doi:10.2337/diacare.27.3.704
  11. PennMS, Klemes AB. Multimarker approach for identifying and documenting mitigation of cardiovascular risk. Future Cardiol. 2013;9(4):497-506. doi:10.2217/fca.13.27
  12. Ikonomidis I,Mihalakeas CA, Lekakis J, et al. Multimarker approach in cardiovascular risk prediction. Dis Markers. 2009;26(5-6):273-285. doi:10.3233/DMA-2009-0633
  13. Richard J, Lingvay I.Hepatic steatosis and Type 2 diabetes: current and future treatment considerations. Expert Rev Cardiovasc Ther. 2011Mar; 9(3): 321–328. doi:10.1586/erc.11.15
 

Questions?

Your Quest account representative can provide additional information on our cardiovascular testing solutions.

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Cardiovascular disease

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