Cholesterol Guidelines Move Forward as Risk Tool Debated
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Concerns raised by two Harvard researchers over new treatment guidelines for heart risk shouldn’t change the method used for determining what patients should get cholesterol-lowering drugs, top U.S. heart doctors said today at the American Heart Association meeting in Dallas.
In a commentary set to run this week in the Lancet medical journal, Harvard University researchers Paul Ridker and Nancy Cook said a risk calculator designed to help doctors determine treatment needs might over-estimate by as much as 150 percent causing patients to be unnecessarily placed on drug treatment.