Coronary disease & ACS

Plasma infrared molecular fingerprinting stratifies residual risk in coronary artery disease and reflects clonal haematopoiesis-associated biology

Eur Heart JPublished Prognostic cohort study with external validation

Authors' conclusion

Plasma IMF provides rapid, low-cost, sequencing-free assessment of residual mortality risk in CAD, outperforming guideline-based scores while reflecting CHIP-associated biology.

Study context

Population
Patients with angiographically confirmed coronary artery disease (CAD) (mean age 73 years, 76% male), followed for up to 10.7 yearsdiscovery cohort
Participants
1,341 patients
Comparison
Infrared molecular fingerprinting (IMF)+Age vs SMART2 score
Outcome
Mortality discrimination (C-index)
Methodological detailsdiscovery cohort, external validation in three independent cohorts
  • Discovery cohort
  • External validation in three independent cohorts

Performance

As reported in the abstract

Mortality discrimination

IMF+Age

0.79

C-index

SMART2

0.74

C-index

P < 0.01

Further findings

Mortality by IMF-derived risk strata · separation of Kaplan-Meier survival curves

P < 0.001

Decision curve analysis

Greater net benefit across clinical thresholds

Clonal haematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) carriers by risk stratum

Higher-risk strata enriched for CHIP carriers, particularly spliceosome mutations

External validation (PRECAD2, KORA, Lasers4Life)

Reproduced expected risk patterns and comorbidity associations
  • PRECAD2 474, KORA 3044, Lasers4Life 2123 individuals

Original publication

Plasma infrared molecular fingerprinting stratifies residual risk in coronary artery disease and reflects clonal haematopoiesis-associated biology. Eur Heart J. Published 29 July 2026. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehag587

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