NEW CARDIOVASCULAR LIPID RISK-FACTORS

Each hyperlipidemia patient requires individual management. Treatment choices are thus made for each patient on the basis of evaluation of their overall cardiovascular risk. This evaluation involves four types of characteristics: those which cannot be changed (age, gender), classical lipid and non-lipid risk factors, and finally cardiovascular status with two types of evaluation (clinical status and sub-clinical, atherosclerosis). Three examples are presented here, enabling more precise assessment of lipid risk: syndrome X which shows to what extent risk factors are often associated, combined familiar hyperlipidemia which emphasises the importance of family history, and lipoprotein (a). The latter is a risk factor relatively inaccessible to treatment but which enables better evaluation of the risk of the patient and choice of a stricter treatment goal when it is very high.