Our review on the use of polygenic risk scores in stroke research was published at Stroke

We’re excited to share that our latest review, “Polygenic Risk Scores in Stroke Research”, has just been published in Stroke.

Stroke remains one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. While traditional risk factors such as hypertension and smoking are well-established, genetic predisposition also plays a major role—with heritability estimates reaching up to 39% for ischemic stroke and 29% for intracerebral hemorrhage.

In this review, we provide an overview of recent advances in the development and application of polygenic (genetic) risk scores (PRS/GRS) for stroke. These scores aggregate information from many common genetic variants to estimate an individual's risk of stroke and hold promise for improving personalized risk prediction beyond standard clinical models.

We discuss how GRSs have shown predictive value in population-based studies, and explore their potential utility in real-world clinical scenarios—for example:

👉 Identifying atrial fibrillation patients at high risk of ischemic stroke,

👉 Estimating hemorrhage risk in individuals on anticoagulation,

👉 Predicting vascular risk factor control in stroke survivors.

We also highlight key challenges—most importantly, the limited generalizability of current scores across ancestrally diverse populations—and outline future directions, including integration with multiomics data and machine learning approaches for more precise risk stratification.

As stroke prevention moves toward more personalized strategies, GRSs may become a valuable tool to support decision-making in both primary and secondary prevention.

🔗 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/STROKEAHA.125.050961