Tratamiento de la hipercolesterolemia: los nuevos ensayos con estatinas. ¿Se deben revisar las guías de tratamiento?

In 2001, the National Cholesterol Education Program published its third expert-panel report on the detection, evaluation, and treatment of hypercholesterolemia in adults (Adult Treatment Panel III). Since then, many new studies of the best way to achieve LDL cholesterol targets have been completed. These indicate that a more aggressive approach to LDL cholesterol therapy should be taken and that modification of previous treatment guidelines should be considered. In particular, new approaches are especially important for high-risk patients, who need to achieve extremely low LDL cholesterol levels. The present paper contains a review of these recent trials and an assessment of their implications for managing the cholesterol level.