Content area
Full Text
In June 1997 we presented a paper before the 44th annual world assembly of the American College of Angiology1 on the status of HMG reductase inhibitors in the treatment of dyslipidemia. Subsequently, we made an updated presentation of the same subject in October 2000.2 It is our present feeling that our recommendations in the latter paper were of sufficient importance to be presented in this journal as a Scientific Communication. It was previously shown that the 10-year risk of death from cardiovascular disease increased from 3.8% to 19.6% with increasing cholesterol levels from "desirable" to "high" in patients with coronary artery disease and that the corresponding risk for a man who is free of cardiovascular disease at baseline increases from 1.7% to 4.9%.3
The only primary prevention trial until recently was the West of Scotland trial, which studied men from 45 to 65 years of age with a mean cholesterol concentration of 272 mg/dL.4 In 1998, a second primary prevention trial with statin therapy (lovastatin) was published, the Airforce-Texas Coronary Atherosclerosis Prevention Study (AFCAPS).5,6 This study included 6,605 men and women without evidence of...