Medical office of Dr. Cinta De Diego, from the Salou High Resolution Center, one of the study's researchers, accompanied by the 4th year family and community medicine resident, Anna Díaz.
A team of medical researchers from the Jordi Gol Primary Care Research Institute (IDIAPJGol) and the Primary Care of the ICS Camp de Tarragona has developed a simple tool that allows predicting the risk that each patient has of suffering cardiovascular complications in the next 10 years. This tool collects information from the analysis of data from more than 5,500 people over 60 years of age with type 2 diabetes, who have been followed for a decade, and presents all this information in the form of a family tree. The aim of this instrument is to help identify patients at higher risk in order to prevent these complications.
Type 2 diabetes is a very common disease worldwide, especially among the elderly. In Spain, many patients over 60 years of age with this disease also have other conditions such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol. This puts them at risk of suffering serious cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks, angina pectoris, strokes (strokes or cerebral infarctions) or even death, since these events are the main cause of mortality in people with type 2 diabetes.
The novelty of this methodology is that it uses a system called the CHAID decision tree (Chi-Square Automatic Interaction Detector). It is like a tree with branches that are divided according to the characteristics of the patients, such as age, blood pressure or fasting cholesterol and blood sugar levels, among other factors. This allows patients to be classified into low, medium or high risk groups, for example:
This model is particularly useful because it transforms complex clinical and epidemiological data into rules that are easy to apply in the daily consultation of the primary care specialist.
Instead of using calculators that are poorly adapted for the elderly, this system allows a rapid assessment and personalized decisions to be made. For example, monitoring of the patient at highest risk can be intensified in the consultation, medication can be better adjusted, or lifestyle changes can be promoted.
The study, published in the scientific journal BMC Primary Care, provides a simple tool, based on real data from our environment, that can help primary care professionals identify which patients with type 2 diabetes over 60 years of age have a higher cardiovascular risk and, in this way, be able to act in advance to prevent serious complications.
Article reference
Ribas Seguí D, Forcadell M, Vila-Córcoles A, de Diego-Cabanes C, Ochoa-Gondar O, Lujan FM, Gracia ES. Classification rule for ten year MACE Risk in primary care tarragona older adults with type2 diabetes: a CHAID decision-tree analysis. BMC Prim Care. 2025 Apr 25;26(1):129. doi: 10.1186/s12875-025-02826-w. PMID: 40281435; PMCID: PMC12032696.