Assessment of the agreement between the Framingham and DAD risk equations for estimating cardiovascular risk in adult Africans living with HIV infection: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: The Absolute cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk evaluation using multivariable CVD risk models is increasingly advocated in people with HIV, in whom existing models remain largely untested. We assessed the agreement between the general population derived Framingham CVD risk equation and the HIV-specific Data collection on Adverse effects of anti-HIV Drugs (DAD) CVD risk equation in HIV-infected adult Cameroonians. METHODS: This cross-sectional study involved 452 HIV infected adults recruited at the HIV day-care unit of the Yaoundé Central Hospital, Cameroon. The 5-year projected CVD risk was estimated for each participant using the DAD and Framingham CVD risk equations. Agreement between estimates from these equations was assessed using the spearman correlation and Cohen’s kappa coefficient. RESULTS: The mean age of participants (80% females) was 44.4 ± 9.8 years. Most participants (88.5%) were on antiretroviral treatment with 93.3% of them receiving first-line regimen. The most frequent cardiovascular risk factors were abdominal obesity (43.1%) and dyslipidemia (33.8%). The median estimated 5-year CVD risk was 0.6% (25th-75th percentiles: 0.3-1.3) using the DAD equation and 0.7% (0.2-2.0) with the Framingham equation. The Spearman correlation between the two estimates was 0.93 (p < 0.001). The kappa statistic was 0.61 (95% confident interval: 0.54-0.67) for the agreement between the two equations in classifying participants across risk categories defined as low, moderate, high and very high. CONCLUSION: Most participants had a low-to-moderate estimated CVD risk, with acceptable level of agreement between the general and HIV-specific equations in ranking CVD risk.