New guidelines for the detection, evaluation, and treatment of elevated cholesterol were released in November this year,[5] and they caused an immediate stir with the assertion that there is simply no evidence from randomized controlled trials to support treatment to a specific cholesterol target level.
As a result, the new guidelines make no recommendations for specific LDL-cholesterol or non-HDL targets for the primary and secondary prevention of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
Instead, the new guidelines identify 4 groups of primary- and secondary-prevention patients in whom physicians should focus their efforts to reduce cardiovascular disease events. And in these 4 patient groups, the new guidelines make recommendations regarding the appropriate “intensity” of statin therapy in order to achieve relative reductions in LDL cholesterol.
