title: Cholesterol Guidelines: More Similar Than Different.
abstract: A clinician has a large number of guidelines to follow. Searching the words "cardiovascular" and "guideline" on the website, www.guideline.gov yielded 502 cardiovascular guidelines, 40 alone in 2015.1[National Guideline Clearinghouse: Agency for Healthcare Research and 19 Quality (n.d.)] Similarly, searching the words "cholesterol" and "guideline" yielded 107 results, 6 alone in 2015. This information overload can decrease providers' self-efficacy in using guidelines, particularly if they have inconsistent messages. Moreover, a busy provider can easily be lost if the emphasis is on highlighting differences rather than similarities on the same topic. There are several guidelines for management of blood cholesterol and lipids. Despite being more similar than different, their similarities have not received as much attention as the differences between them. Unfortunately, there are still major gaps in current clinical practice even across these common themes. In this review, we will provide a brief overview of various cholesterol/lipid guidelines followed by a discussion of the differences but more importantly, similarities between them.
authors: Department of Cardiovascular Research, Saint Luke's Mid-America Heart Institute, Kansas City, MO.
authors: Yashashwi
authors: Y
authors: Pokharel
authors: Health Policy, Quality &Informatics Program, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center Health Services Research and Development Center for Innovations, Houston, TX.
authors: Julia M
authors: JM
authors: Akeroyd
authors: Health Policy, Quality &Informatics Program, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center Health Services Research and Development Center for Innovations, Houston, TX; Section of Cardiovascular Research, Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX; Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention, Methodist DeBakey Heart and Vascular Center, Houston, TX. Electronic address: virani@bcm.edu.
authors: Salim S
authors: SS
authors: Virani
mesh_terms: D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control*; D050171:Dyslipidemias / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D054539:Medication Therapy Management / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards*
keywords: Cardiovascular prevention; Cholesterol; Dyslipidemia; Guidelines; Lipids