Novel Smartphone App Can Assess Genetic Risk For Cardiac Disease

Apr, 2022 - By WMR

Researchers developed a smartphone application that can evaluate genetic risk of a person for coronary artery disease (CAD) and directs users that are at high risk to proper medical advice

Researchers from the Scripps Research Translational Institute created a novel application for smartphone that can calculate genetic risk of a person for developing coronary artery disease (CAD) and directs the users that are found to have high risk, to proper medical advice. The novel app named MyGeneRank is currently made available on Android and iPhone, as reported by the team of researchers.

Coronary artery disease affects around 20 million people in America every year and it the most common reason of death all over the world. As the disease is highly heritable condition getting scores of genetic risk is important to identify people that can benefit from lipid-lowering medicines. In this new study, the researchers developed an app for smartphones that assesses a polygenic risk score of a user for CAD from pre-existing data of 23andMe. The team asked users to fill out some health surveys and consents for the app to assess 23andMe data. Then the users are provided a score for genetic risk of CAD with advice for genetic counseling and lifestyle changes.

The research studies results of 721 early users and offered each subject initial data for genetic risk and then allotted a follow up after a year for tracking the following behavioral responses to the data. The team found that subjects receiving high scores of genetic risk for CAD were expected to start statins or other therapies focusing on lowering cholesterol for the one year follow up as compared to subjects receiving low scores. The project is at on-going stage as the team looks to assess the efficiency of the app with larger number of subjects. The advancement in the app are likely to track particular outcomes of cardiovascular disease such as heart attacks.