- Question
- Does an invitation to comprehensive cardiovascular screening reduce all-cause mortality in older men compared with no screening?
- Design
- Population-based, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial in 15 Danish municipalities, with 1:2 randomization stratified by municipality and 46611 participants randomized. Only the control group was unaware of the assignment; median follow-up was 5.6 years.
- Population
- Men aged 65 to 74 years living in 15 Danish municipalities. After excluding 85 who died or emigrated before being invited, 16736 remained in the invited group and 29790 in the control group.
- Intervention
- Invitation to screening for subclinical cardiovascular disease with noncontrast ECG-gated CT (coronary-artery calcium score, detection of aneurysms and atrial fibrillation), ankle-brachial blood-pressure measurements for peripheral artery disease and hypertension, and a blood sample for diabetes and hypercholesterolemia. Screening was performed in 10471 men in the invited group (62.6%).
- Control
- No invitation to screening (control group, no intervention).
- Primary outcome
- Death from any cause.
- Results
- In the intention-to-treat analysis, 2106 men (12.6%) in the invited group and 3915 (13.1%) in the control group died (HR 0.95; 95% CI 0.90 to 1.00; P = 0.06). The HR for stroke was 0.93 (95% CI 0.86 to 0.99).
- Safety
- There were no significant between-group differences in safety outcomes.
- Conclusion
- After more than 5 years, invitation to comprehensive cardiovascular screening did not significantly reduce all-cause mortality among men aged 65 to 74 years.
- Why it matters
- The trial provided randomized evidence on population-based multicomponent cardiovascular screening and showed that, at this follow-up, the benefit on overall mortality did not reach statistical significance, urging caution before adopting it broadly.
Card generated automatically with AI from the abstract of the original publication and the trial registry; every figure was checked against those sources. It may contain errors: verify the data at the source before using it for clinical decisions.
Generated on October 18, 2026