Attitudes of attending physicians to the incidental diagnosis of hypercholesterolemia in hospitalized patients

The National Cholesterol Education Program has recently updated its recommendations for evaluation and treatment of hypercholesterolemia.⁶ These new recommendations put additional emphasis on the presence of CAD and older age for selecting candidates for lipid-lowering drugs. Young men (< 35 years old) and premenopausal women are now manageable with diet therapy only, unless they have very high cholesterol levels and diabetes mellitus, or a family history of premature CAD. The low percentage of patients with hypercholesterolemia that should be treated, who actually received therapy in our study (only 14%), includes those receiving recommendations for lipid-lowering diet or drugs. Therefore, most patients would be classified as not getting appropriate treatment even if judged by the newer standards.