Development and Validation of a Novel Model for Predicting the 5-Year Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Patients with Hypertension: A Retrospective Cohort Study

BACKGROUND: Hypertension is now common in China. Patients with hypertension and type 2 diabetes are prone to severe cardiovascular complications and poor prognosis. Therefore, this study is aimed at establishing an effective risk prediction model to provide early prediction of the risk of new-onset diabetes for patients with a history of hypertension. METHODS: A LASSO regression model was used to select potentially relevant features. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to determine independent predictors. Based on the results of multivariate analysis, a nomogram of the 5-year incidence of T2D in patients with hypertension in mainland China was established. The discriminative capacity was assessed by Harrell's C-index, AUC value, calibration plot, and clinical utility. RESULTS: After random sampling, 1273 and 415 patients with hypertension were included in the derivation and validation cohorts, respectively. The prediction model included age, body mass index, FPG, and TC as predictors. In the derivation cohort, the AUC value and C-index of the prediction model are 0.878 (95% CI, 0.861-0.895) and 0.862 (95% CI, 0.830-0.894), respectively. In the validation cohort, the AUC value and C-index of the prediction model were 0.855 (95% CI, 0.836-0.874) and 0.841 (95% CI, 0.817-0.865), respectively. The calibration plots demonstrated good agreement between the estimated probability and the actual observation. Decision curve analysis shows that nomograms are clinically useful. CONCLUSION: Our nomogram can be used as a simple, affordable, reasonable, and widely implemented tool to predict the 5-year T2D risk of hypertension patients in mainland China. This application helps timely intervention to reduce the incidence of T2D in patients with hypertension in mainland China.