AIMS: No cardiovascular risk prediction model dedicated to individuals aged ≥70 years with diabetes is currently recommended by the European Society of Cardiology. We aimed to develop a new model, CArdiovascular Risk Estimation-Diabetes Mellitus (CARE-DM), to predict the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in older adults with type 2 diabetes. METHODS AND RESULTS: We developed a model to predict the risk of incident CVD in participants aged ≥65 years with diabetes using data from four population-based prospective cohorts, accounting for the competing risk of non-cardiovascular death. Pre-specified predictors were age, gender, smoking status, alcohol consumption, body mass index, total and HDL cholesterol, use of antihypertensive, cholesterol-lowering and glucose-lowering medication, diabetes duration, and glycated haemoglobin. We assessed model performance using measures of calibration and discrimination. We used a 10-fold cross-validation and a bootstrapping approach to correct estimates for optimism and conducted an internal-external cross-validation. A total of 6943 participants (median age 72 years, 56% women) with diabetes were included in the model development. Over a median follow-up of 6.3 (interquartile range 3.7, 7.2) years, 1204 (17.3%) participants experienced a CVD event. Internal validation with optimism correction showed adequate model performance with a C-index of 0.65 (95% confidence interval 0.63-0.67), an observed-to-expected ratio of 1.01 (0.95-1.08), and a calibration slope of 1.13 (0.95-1.31) at 5 years. CONCLUSION: The new CARE-DM model allows prediction of the incident CVD risk in older adults with type 2 diabetes. Independent external validation should be conducted to confirm the model's performance before implementation in clinical practice.
Aponte Ribero, V., Efthimiou, O., Alwan, H., Bauer, D. C., Henrard, S., Waeber, G., Marques-Vidal, P., Rodondi, N., Del Giovane, C., & Gencer, B. (2026). Development and validation of the CARE-DM model to predict the cardiovascular risk in older persons with type 2 diabetes. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 33(1), 44-52. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjpc/zwaf296 (Original work published 2025)