Cholesterol screening and treatment
NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination
Record ID 31995000034
English
Authors' objectives:
To assess the role of cholesterol screening and cholesterol lowering treatment in reducing mortality from Coronary Heart Disease.
Authors' results and conclusions:
Clinical:Blood cholesterol by itself is a poor predictor of individual risk of CHD and other factors such as smoking, high blood pressure and ischaemic changes must be considered. Cholesterol lowering drugs are effective at reducing overall mortality only among patients at high overall risk of CHD death - Odds Ratio = 0.74 (95% CI 0.6-0.92). Cholesterol lowering drugs may increase total mortality in people with low CHD mortality risk - Odds Ratio = 1.22 (95% CI:1.06-1.42). Very strict diets reduce CHD mortality and do not increase non CHD mortality.
Authors' recommendations:
Cholesterol screening is unlikely to make a contribution to the lowering of overall mortality and should be actively discouraged. Therapy should be targeted at those patients at highest overall CHD risk.
Authors' methods:
Systematic review
Details
Project Status:
Completed
URL for project:
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/crd/ehcb.htm
Year Published:
1993
English language abstract:
An English language summary is available
Publication Type:
Not Assigned
Country:
England
MeSH Terms
- Cholesterol
- Hypercholesterolemia
- Mass Screening
Contact
Organisation Name:
University of York
Contact Address:
University of York, York, Y01 5DD, United Kingdom. Tel: +44 1904 321040, Fax: +44 1904 321041,
Contact Name:
crd@york.ac.uk
Contact Email:
crd@york.ac.uk
Copyright:
University of York
This is a bibliographic record of a published health technology assessment from a member of INAHTA or other HTA producer. No evaluation of the quality of this assessment has been made for the HTA database.