By Desperate Appliance Relieved? On the Clinical Relevance of Risk Stratification to Therapeutic Decision-Making

Risk stratification is a mainstay of current cardiovascular care. Its practical relevance to therapeutic decision making depends, however, on the often unverified assumption that higher risk patients experience greater treatment benefit. The truth of this assumption depends, in turn, on the particular set of variables in the putative risk prediction model, the pathophysiology of the underlying disease, and the associated goal(s) of therapy. If the operative set of risk predictors is incomplete (ignoring variables affected by treatment) or inconsistent (including variables unaffected by treatment), this will influence the relation between pretreatment risk and post-treatment benefit in complex ways having material clinical consequences. In conclusion, the clinical appropriateness of risk stratification must not be assumed. Instead, risk stratification guidelines specific to a particular disease and a particular treatment should be founded on prospective empiric validation.