Application of New Cholesterol Guidelines to a Population-Based Sample

BackgroundThe 2013 guidelines of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association (ACC-AHA) for the treatment of cholesterol expand the indications for statin therapy for the prevention of cardiovascular disease. MethodsUsing data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys of 2005 to 2010, we estimated the number, and summarized the risk-factor profile, of persons for whom statin therapy would be recommended (i.e., eligible persons) under the new ACC-AHA guidelines, as compared with the guidelines of the Third Adult Treatment Panel (ATP III) of the National Cholesterol Education Program, and extrapolated the results to a population of 115.4 million U.S. adults between the ages of 40 and 75 years. ResultsAs compared with the ATP-III guidelines, the new guidelines would increase the number of U.S. adults receiving or eligible for statin therapy from 43.2 million (37.5%) to 56.0 million (48.6%). Most of this increase in numbers (10.4 million of 12.8 million) would occur among adults without cardiovascular disease. Among adults between the ages of 60 and 75 years without cardiovascular disease who are not receiving statin therapy, the percentage who would be eligible for such therapy would increase from 30.4% to 87.4% among men and from 21.2% to 53.6% among women. This effect would be driven largely by an increased number of adults who would be classified solely on the basis of their 10-year risk of a cardiovascular event. Those who would be newly eligible for statin therapy include more men than women and persons with a higher blood pressure but a markedly lower level of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. As compared with the ATP-III guidelines, the new guidelines would recommend statin therapy for more adults who would be expected to have future cardiovascular events (higher sensitivity) but would also include many adults who would not have future events (lower specificity). ConclusionsThe new ACC-AHA guidelines for the management of cholesterol would increase the number of adults who would be eligible for statin therapy by 12.8 million, with the increase seen mostly among older adults without cardiovascular disease. (Funded by the Duke Clinical Research Institute and others.) The investigators used NHANES data for 2005 to 2010 to extrapolate the effects of the new 2013 cholesterol treatment guidelines across the United States. They estimate that the new guidelines would increase the number of adults eligible for statin therapy by 12.8 million. Until recently, the guidelines of the Third Adult Treatment Panel (ATP III) of the National Cholesterol Education Program were the recommended guidelines to aid in the treatment of hyperlipidemia in the United States.(1),(2) The ATP-III guidelines identified patients with established cardiovascular disease or diabetes and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels of 100 mg per deciliter (2.59 mmol per liter) or higher as candidates for statin therapy. In addition, the ATP-III guidelines recommended the use of statin therapy for primary prevention in patients on the basis of a combined assessment of LDL cholesterol level and the 10-year risk of coronary ...