Adding Blood Lipid-Related Markers May Add Little To CV Risk Prediction.

MedPage Today  (6/20, Gever) reports, "Only slight improvements in cardiovascular risk prediction were gained by adding more blood lipid-related markers to conventional factors," according to a study  published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Investigators found that "fewer than 5% of individuals would have their risk classifications changed by including such markers as apolipoprotein A-I, apolipoprotein B, lipoprotein(a), or lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 (LpA-PLA2) in gauging the likelihood of major cardiovascular events." In fact, "at best, adding more lipid markers to the risk prediction equation brought 'slight improvement,' the researchers wrote."

        HeartWire  (6/20, Hughes) reports, "In an accompanying editorial  , Dr Scott Grundy (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas) agrees that these apolipoproteins 'do not add much to risk prediction over routine lipid measures.'" Grundy "suggests that the main reason for this is that cardiovascular disease is multifactorial and that apolipoproteins are only one set of factors among many."