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Novel Risk Engine for Diabetes Progression and Mortality in USA: Building, Relating, Assessing, and Validating Outcomes (BRAVO)

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A Correction to this article was published on 16 May 2019

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Abstract

Background

There is an urgent need to update diabetes prediction, which has relied on the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) that dates back to 1970 s’ European populations.

Objective

The objective of this study was to develop a risk engine with multiple risk equations using a recent patient cohort with type 2 diabetes mellitus reflective of the US population.

Methods

A total of 17 risk equations for predicting diabetes-related microvascular and macrovascular events, hypoglycemia, mortality, and progression of diabetes risk factors were estimated using the data from the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) trial (n = 10,251). Internal and external validation processes were used to assess performance of the Building, Relating, Assessing, and Validating Outcomes (BRAVO) risk engine. One-way sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine the impact of risk factors on mortality at the population level.

Results

The BRAVO risk engine added several risk factors including severe hypoglycemia and common US racial/ethnicity categories compared with the UKPDS risk engine. The BRAVO risk engine also modeled mortality escalation associated with intensive glycemic control (i.e., glycosylated hemoglobin < 6.5%). External validation showed a good prediction power on 28 endpoints observed from other clinical trials (slope = 1.071, R2 = 0.86).

Conclusion

The BRAVO risk engine for the US diabetes cohort provides an alternative to the UKPDS risk engine. It can be applied to assist clinical and policy decision making such as cost-effective resource allocation in USA.

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Change history

  • 16 May 2019

    The original article can be found online.

  • 16 May 2019

    The original article can be found online.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Global Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, 1440 Canal Street, Suite 1900, New Orleans, LA, 70112, USA

    Hui Shao, Charles Stoecker, Shuqian Liu & Lizheng Shi

  2. School of Medicine, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Vivian Fonseca

Authors
  1. Hui Shao
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  2. Vivian Fonseca
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  3. Charles Stoecker
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  4. Shuqian Liu
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  5. Lizheng Shi
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Contributions

Hui Shao analyzed the data for developing the BRAOVO risk engine with both internal and external validation and drafted the manuscript. Vivian Fonseca and Shuqian Liu provided clinical interpretation to support the BRAVO risk engine. Charles Stoecker reviewed the econometrics in the risk engine during the model development. Lizheng Shi as the principal investigator initiated the project and worked with Hui Shao in developing the BRAVO risk engine and the manuscript. All authors are extensively involved in writing the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lizheng Shi.

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Funding

No sources of funding were received for the preparation of this article.

Conflict of interest

Hui Shao, Vivian Fonseca, Charles Stoecker, Shuqian Liu, and Lizheng Shi have no conflicts of interest directly relevant to the content of this article.

Data availability

The datasets used for this study are publicly available and can be requested through the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute [42].

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Shao, H., Fonseca, V., Stoecker, C. et al. Novel Risk Engine for Diabetes Progression and Mortality in USA: Building, Relating, Assessing, and Validating Outcomes (BRAVO). PharmacoEconomics 36, 1125–1134 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40273-018-0662-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40273-018-0662-1

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