Stroke Risk Estimation in Atrial Fibrillation: Please Give Me Lip!

The best way we have of estimating a patient’s risk of stroke if they have atrial fibrillation (AF) is by the CHA2DS2-VASc scale.
This scale take the factors we know that increase the risk of stroke and assigns 1 or 2 points. The acronym comes from the first letter of the factors that are known to increase risk as listed to the left.
Most of the factors get 1 point, but prior stroke (S) and age>75 (A) get 2 points.
We then add up your points and use another chart (or app) to calculate the risk of stroke per year.
Your risk of stroke is very low if you have zero risk factor; it gets progressively higher as you reach the maximum number of 9.
Treatment with an oral anticoagulant (OAC),  either warfarin, or one of the four newer anticoagulant agents (NOACS), is recommended when the risk gets above 1-2% per year.
The higher the risk, the more the benefit of these blood thinners in preventing stroke.
In lower risk patients, the bleeding risk of OAC of 1% per year may outweigh the benefits conferred by stroke reduction.
Both European and American guidelines recommend using the CHA₂DS₂-VASc score for initial risk stratification. The European  guideline recommends OAC therapy for males with a CHA₂DS₂-VASc score ≥1 and for female patients with a score ≥2., whereas the American guideline recommends use of OAC if the CHA₂DS₂-VASc  score is ≥2 for men and women.
I’ve been using the CHA2DS2-VASc scale for several years in my AF patients. I try to review the patient’s risk of stroke and their risk of bleeding during every office visit, and decide whether they should be on or off an OAC.
Initially, it was helpful typing all those capital letters and number twos (although I never took the time to make the twos a subscript) because it helped remind me of the factors.
However, I now view this acronym as a big pain in the neck and I am sick of typing it into my electronic medical records. It is also, really hard to say. Do you say “chad -two-D-S-two-vasc?” That is six syllables! I could have told my patient that warfarin is rat poison during that time.
And, what is with the Sc? Sex category? Why not just an S?

An Easier Term For The Stroke Risk Estimator: The Lip Score

I would like to formally request that this be termed the Lip stroke risk score in honor of Dr. Gregory Y. H. Lip who developed it at the University of Birmingham (UK).
because (per his bio): 
“The CHA₂DS₂-VASc and HAS-BLED scores for assessing stroke and bleeding risk, respectively were first proposed and independently validated following his research, and are now incorporated into major international management guidelines.”
If the Lip score should somehow be unacceptable, then let’s go with the Birmingham score (recognizing, of course, that this is Birmingham, England and not Birmingham, Alabama). After all, this is what the app I use terms itself and I can type Birmingham a lot faster than CHA2DS2-VASc (even without the subscripts).
The Lip Score will be a great advance in the world of stroke risk estimation for AF patients. It will make all of us doctors creating EMR notes much more efficient, shaving precious minutes off the work day. It will be easier to communicate to patients, medical students and other medical personnel.
Finally, it gives, credit where credit is due, to Dr. Lip, who, according to his bio: “In January 2014, was ranked by Expertscape as the world’s leading expert in the understanding and treatment of AF,”
(I have no knowledge of Expertscape but you can be sure I will be investigating them soon)
Giving Lip service to stroke and atrial fibrillation,
ACP