title: Costs of dyslipidemia.
abstract: Dyslipidemia has been recognized as an important risk-factor for the development of cardiovascular disease. The current, available therapies of dyslipidemia, their effectiveness, costs, cost-effectiveness and healthcare implications are discussed. At the present time, the lipid-lowering therapies are dominated by statins. Despite a variety of assumptions regarding modeling cardiovascular disease risks and costs, statin therapy is generally cost-effective for secondary prevention and for primary prevention in individuals with additional risk-factors. The costs of drug therapy and the absolute risk of developing future cardiovasular events are the dominant factors determining the cost-effectiveness. When developing clinical guidelines, the cost-effectiveness and proportion of the population to be treated must be considered as well as the total population costs of treatment.
authors.affiliation: Centre for the Analysis of Cost-Effective Care and the Divisions of General Internal Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, The Montreal General Hospital, Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. hanna.zowall@mail.mcgill.ca
authors.forename: Hanna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zowall
authors.forename: Steven A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Grover