ArticleJournal of medical screening2024
Comparing screening based on the NHS Health Check and Polypill Prevention Programmes in the primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes.
Article in Journal of medical screening, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Assessment of the value of polygenic risk scores in the prevention of disease.Journal of medical screening · 2025Review
- Non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol is a predictor for cardiovascular mortality in patients with diabetes mellitus.World journal of cardiology · 2025Article
- A secret medicine.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2024Article
- The polypill in the primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes: Overcoming barriers to implementation.Journal of medical screening · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo compare the NHS Health Check Programme with the Polypill Prevention Programme in the primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes.
designUse of published data and methodology to produce flow charts of the two programmes to determine screening performance and heart attacks and strokes prevented.
settingThe UK population.
interventionThe NHS Health Check Programme using a QRISK score on people aged 40-74 to select those eligible for a statin is compared with the Polypill Prevention Programme in people aged 50 or more to select people for a combination of a statin and three low-dose blood pressure lowering agents. In both programmes, people had no history of heart attack or stroke.
main outcome measuresIn 1000 people, the number of heart attacks and strokes prevented in the two programmes.
resultsIn the hypothetical perfect situation with 100% uptake and adherence to the screening protocol, in every 1000 persons, the NHS Health Check would prevent 287 cases of a heart attack or stroke in individuals who would gain on average about 4 years of life without a heart attack or stroke amounting to 1148 years in total, the precise gain depending on the extent of treatment for those with raised blood pressure, and 136 would be prescribed statins with no benefit. The corresponding figures for the Polypill Prevention Programme are 316 individuals who would, on average, gain 8 years of life without a heart attack or stroke, amounting to 2528 years in total, and 260 prescribed the polypill with no benefit. Based on published estimates of uptake and adherence in the NHS Health Check Programme, in practice only 24 cases per 1000 are currently benefitting instead of 287, amounting to 96 years gained without a heart attack or stroke.
conclusionsThe Polypill Prevention Programme is by design simpler with the potential of preventing many more heart attacks and strokes than the NHS Health Check Programme.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.