The assessment of individual cardiovascular disease risk (CVD) is essential for a cost-effective prevention of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. While almost half of the population have a very low CVD risk approximately 1/5th of the population have a CVD risk >20% over the next 10 years.Modern risk scores like the ESC-SCORE2 help to identify those in need of intensified preventive efforts based on basic risk factors like smoking, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, age, and sex. According to current ESC-guidelines all men >45 years and all women >55 years should be assessed with SCORE2, which is the best calibrated and validated scoring system for Europe.The calculation of total cardiovascular risk also permits to calculate an individual heart-age, which makes it easier for the individual patient to understand his own risk profile. Most current risk estimation systems can be accessed online under u-prevent.com/calculators.
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