A better way to determine an individual's risk for heart attack and heart failure has been devised by U. S. researchers.

Adding the results of blood tests -- complete blood count and metabolic profiles -- to the currently used Framingham Risk Score that measures cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes, age and gender substantially improved results, Researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center's Heart Institute in Murray, Utah, said.

The researchers were 30 percent more likely to correctly determine a woman's cardiovascular risk and 57 percent more likely to determine a man's cardiovascular risk when the Intermountain Risk Score was combined with the Framingham Risk Score.

Principal author, Benjamin Horne, said in a statement "Framingham does a good job of classifying groups of patients. But it's not as good at identifying an individual's risk for disease. Our research has shown that the Intermountain Risk Score really improves a doctor's ability to measure patient risk."

About 5,000 patients, treated for angiography or vascular imaging, were looked at by Horne and colleagues. (With Inputs from Agencies)