Community Benefit of No-charge Calcium Score Screening Program (CLARIFY)

University Hospitals (UH)

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Cardiovascular Risk Factor

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04075162

20190995

Details and patient eligibility

About

Current approaches in primary prevention for cardiovascular disease are based on probabilistic approaches to estimate risk, using many of the widely available cardiovascular risks scores, with over 100 such scoring systems currently available throughout the world. The rationale for this practice is to select those individuals at greatest risk for more intense targets, reduce risk of treatment to those at minimal risk, and to maximize the cost-effectiveness of treatment. A recent Cochrane Systematic Review assessed the practice of using risk scores to select individuals for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. 3 The principal finding of the systematic review was that there was little or no effect of providing clinicians with cardiovascular risk scores when compared to standard of care (5.4% versus 5.3%; relative risk 1.01, 95% confidence intervals 0.95 to 1.08). The authors concluded that there is major uncertainty whether current strategies for providing risk scores and called for further research to address this concern. Extent of coronary artery calcium (CAC) is a strong risk marker for coronary events, with evidence mainly derived from observational studies and from prospective non-randomized studies. CAC, although endorsed for intermediate risk patients, is not widely adopted due to barriers in reimbursement. The cost of the test ranges between 100 and 300 USD in the United States, which may have limited the wide adoption of the test. Whether reducing the cost burden for CAC increases utilization for routine screening and its influence on physician practices and downstream testing is largely unknown. University Hospitals started offering low charge CAC (99$) since 2014. In 2017, University Hospitals started offering CAC for no charge for patients to improve access to this test, which has not traditionally been covered by insurance companies. The impact of no-charge CAC has never been studied.

Enrollment: 77,000 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 100 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Received Coronary Artery Calcium (CAC) CT scan at University Hospitals starting in January 1, 2014.

Exclusion criteria

Trial design

77,000 participants in 2 patient groups

Low charge CAC

Description:

Patients receiving CAC for Cardiovascular disease risk screening at low charge (99 USD)

No charge CAC

Description:

Patients receiving CAC for Cardiovascular disease risk screening at no charge