Application of two versions of the WHO/international society of hypertension absolute cardiovascular risk assessment tools in a rural Bangladeshi population

Objectives: To estimate the absolute cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk burden in a remote rural Bangladeshi population using the 'With' and 'Without' Cholesterol versions of the WHO/International Society of Hypertension (WHO/ISH) CVD risk assessment chart (particularly suitable for low and middle-income countries due to less reliance on laboratory testing) and to evaluate the agreement between the two approaches.

Design: Cross-sectional study using data from a large prospective cohort of the North Bengal Non-Communicable Disease Programme (NB-NCDP) of Bangladesh.

Setting: General rural population from Thakurgaon district of Bangladesh.

Participants: 563 individuals who were categorised as having 'no CVDs' on screening by a questionnaire-based survey using the 'WHO CVD-Risk Management Package' developed in 2002.

Main outcome measures: Absolute CVD risk burden assessed using two versions of the WHO/ISH risk assessment charts for the South-East Asian Region-D.

Results: 10-year risk (moderate, high and very high) positivity was present among 21.5% and 20.2% of participants, respectively, using with and without cholesterol versions of the tool. The overall concordance rate for the two versions was 89.5% and they did not differ significantly in estimating the proportion of overall participants having higher levels of CVD. The projected drug requirement, however, showed a significant overestimation in the proportion of participants at both the threshold levels (p<0.002) on using 'without' as compared to 'with' cholesterol versions.

Conclusions: About one-fifth of the adult population in Bangladesh, even in a remote rural area, seem to be at risk of developing CVDs (25% of them at high risk and 25% at very high risk) within 10 years with males and females being almost equally vulnerable.